


Draco Malfoy and the Strickland Case

by Ralph_E_Silvering



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Humour, M/M, Mystery, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-21
Updated: 2014-12-05
Packaged: 2018-02-26 12:24:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 76,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2651963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ralph_E_Silvering/pseuds/Ralph_E_Silvering
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco Malfoy was definitely up to something.......and Harry Potter was going to find out what. Takes place after DH and is Epilogue Compliant. This will be a slow building mystery, will feature several main romances, as well as multiple, intersecting storylines. Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter are the main characters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Draco Malfoy was Up To Something

Disclaimer: I own nothing from the world of Harry Potter because if I had the ending would have been very different. This story will be mostly Action/Adventure/Humor mixed with a bit of Mystery and some good old-fashioned espionage and unresolved sexual tension. Epilogue Compliant. I don't really seem to do long updates, but will try and post at least once a week to make up for that grievous failing. Please review. Reviews make me update faster. They also make me write better. 

 

Draco Malfoy and the Strickland Case

 

Chapter One

 

Draco Malfoy was up to something.

Harry Potter, Head of the Auror Department, a Respected Member in Good Standing of the Wizengamot, Husband and Father of three almost grown children had been hiding in a bush when he made this discovery, avoiding his wife and simultaneously taking a wee.

Hence the reason he was loath to tell anyone about his rather recent revelation.

It had been a stressful week all-around. On Monday there had been an annoyed owl from Headmistress McGonagall detailing James' latest harebrained scheme for the attainment of Everlasting Hogwarts Fame and the successful Acquisition of Girls. Then, on Wednesday, Ginny had found out he'd been avoiding weekly Couple's Night by claiming he had to work overtime on the Interdepartmental nightmare that was known - and feared - throughout the Ministry as the Strickland Case, while he was really spending the evening out drinking with Ron - who was in the middle of a relationship crisis at the moment, and consequently needed all the drinks he could get.

The screaming row that had ended that day had set off car alarms up and down the street and had had the neighbors on the phone with the police. Harry had been avoiding her ever since, which had proved surprisingly difficult to do...for the Head Auror.

He would have felt more embarrassed by this if he wasn't so busy ducking behind corners at the faintest sign of Ginny's irate scowl. He hadn't even gone home for the past two nights, electing to sleep at the office as the lesser of two evils; so now he had a back ache as well as a permanent scowl of his own from lack of appropriate rest.

Hermione, who had been legitimately working long hours on the Strickland Case had had absolutely no sympathy for him when she appeared in his office at two in the morning on Friday to get a sit rep.

She'd brought coffee with her so Harry had been inclined to let her in.

"It's all very well for you," Harry groused at her, stabbing violently at one of the reports that littered his desk. He hated paperwork. "You're free as a bird, single, unattached, perfectly able to go out for a drink with your best mate without having to check in with the old ball and chain."

"I'm sure Ginny would love to hear you calling that," Hermione said, amused and reproving at the same time. She never visibly rose at any of his mood swings - unlike the entirety of the Weasley family - and that made her ideal for calming Harry down whenever he got overworked and couldn't let off steam at anyone else.

Harry sighed. "You know I don't mean it." He paused a moment, twisting his coffee cup around in his hands. Hermione perched comfortably on the edge of his desk, perfectly willing to wait. "It's just, she's been difficult lately...and then there's this whole thing with Strickland which has got the entirety of the Department in a furor....and there's been another murder -" he ignored Hermione's sudden look of wide-eyed attention and ploughed on with the list of his own woes - "and James is doing so poorly that I'm afraid McGonagall's going to kick him out...and I haven't been sleeping and Ron spent all of Wednesday night going on and on about his relationship with Pansy Parkinson of all people!"

He found himself standing and yelling at the injustice of a Universe that saw fit to only give Ronald Weasley a problem with his new girlfriend.

"Hmm." Hermione looked, if possible, even more amused. "Yes, Rose told me about Pansy Parkinson." Her smirk would have convinced a lesser man to start running for the hills. "I hear she's high-maintenance." She sounded smugly satisfied.

Hermione and Ron's divorce had been....there was no other word for it, messy. Attacking birds had been the least of it. Harry had been, as usual, caught in the middle. Rose and Hugo had gleefully taken notes and still fondly used those months as an excuse to get themselves out of any and all trouble with both parents.

To be completely honest, sometimes Harry did as well.

He snorted now. "No more high-maintenance than the last one," he muttered. Hermione gave him a mock scowl.

"I resent that."

"And I resent that you're here, being all smug and amused in my office, at two in the morning."

"I brought you coffee."

"Yeah, because coffee is a valid excuse."

Hermione sniffed. "Coffee is always a valid excuse. Or so Draco Malfoy tells me on a daily basis."

Harry started at the name he hadn't heard in several years and Hermione hid the grin that wanted to surface on her face. She had had a feeling that would successfully derail him from his little pity party.

"Wait, you work with Draco Malfoy?" Harry's intense green gaze was suddenly pinned on her, the force of the focus that had defeated the Dark Lord and almost singlehandedly revamped the entire Auror Department, was hard to bear for even the most seasoned associates and next to impossible for the uninitiated, but Hermione welcomed its return like an old friend. There were things happening that her permutations and calculations were failing to explain and account for - she mustn't forget to investigate that newest murder as soon as she got back to her own office - and she felt that some things had to be shaken up a bit.

Harry's loud voice interrupted her thoughts. "You work with Draco Malfoy in the -"

Hermione's sudden glare cut him off. The Unspeakables were called Unspeakables for a number of very good reasons and this was one of them; people did not talk about them.

People weren't even sure what they did.

Not even Harry Potter knew what went on in the Department of Mysteries, although he had a better idea than most of the Wizarding Populace.

"I have no idea what Draco Malfoy does with his time," Hermione continued calmly, as though nothing untoward had almost been said. "And I certainly don't work with him." She made sure to keep her voice cool and unconcerned, and above all to not pause as though she was planting bait. "I just run into him every morning at that coffee shop I like to go to in Shoreditch."

"Draco Malfoy goes to a Muggle coffee shop?"

Honestly, sometimes Harry sounded like a broken record. Hermione hid another inappropriate grin and tsked sharply. "Never mind about Draco Malfoy, Harry, we were talking about you and Ginny and then you got derailed by Ron and Pansy Parkinson." Her nose scrunched up at the thought. She still didn't like the woman.

"You know, her latest album sold out even in America?!" There was true outrage at this injustice in her voice, although to be fair no one who went to school with her could have predicted that Pansy Parkinson would become the British Wizarding World's biggest pop star. Her top single of Burn the Wand at Both Ends had broken records held by Celestina Warbeck.

No one would have predicted that Ron Weasley would go into business with Blaise Zabini and create the Wizarding World's largest and most innovative pharmaceutical company either.

When Harry had told him to take a break from the Aurors after his divorce from Hermione, that wasn't what he had had in mind.

But within a half-decade Ron Weasley had started with only the business sense he had acquired working in George's store - as well as the skills of Neville Longbottom as Chief Herbologist - and created an Herbal Shop that actually sold remedies that worked. Enter Blaise Zabini and his trust fund, his seemingly limitless connections and his personal charm and you got WZ Pharmaceuticals; a place on the cutting edge of research with orders coming in from around the world.

If the Weasley Twins had gotten all the innovation of the family, well their youngest brother had gotten all of the business acumen.

Ron Weasley was one of the richest Wizards in all of Britain.

Hermione Granger was an Unspeakable.

And Harry Potter was still Head Auror.

Hermione leveled herself off the desk, placed her almost empty coffee cup down on the flat surface, and went around the other side of Harry's desk. He had slowly sat back down in his chair and was tiredly rubbing his eyes under his glasses. She placed a gentle arm around his shoulders and rested her head softly against his.

The Strickland Case was taking everything out of all of them - Unspeakables and Aurors alike - but she knew that Harry was feeling something in addition to that whole mess. She knew because she had been in the same place several years ago now.

It was that boxed in, caged feeling as though you were slowly suffocating and there was absolutely no air for you to breathe in even though every other person around you was breathing just fine. It was that feeling that hit you just before you fell asleep at night, that question of Is this it? It was that bemused resignation that crept up on you in the morning as you got up and found you were numb at the idea of going to the office for one more day, working through one more case report, have one more meeting, talking at one more presentation even though you knew that your words wouldn't make any difference to anyone, anywhere.

It had taken her a long time - longer than she was comfortable admitting to anyone, even herself - to pinpoint what it was that didn't fit. Now she thought that Harry might be going through something like that as well, but she knew that the only person who could figure out that something was wrong was Harry himself.

Still, there was nothing to say she couldn't give him a slight nudge in the right direction.

"Why are you really unhappy, Harry?"

And Harry, with his vague thoughts on an angry Ginny, and a satisfied Ron, and a brilliant, scarily perceptive, innovative Hermione, and a Draco Malfoy who got coffee in Muggle London, and a psychopathic murderer on the loose, had no answer for her.

"It's going to be alright, Harry," Hermione told him softly, before giving him one last hug and departing.

He spent the next hour going over their conversation in his head, and even as he fell forward onto his desk and into exhausted slumber, he had no idea what to make of it.

She had a way of doing that, Hermione. Attacking a conversation from all sides so that you didn't know which way to turn and you had no idea what she was really after even when the conversation was over and she had breezed back to wherever she had come from.

So now here Harry was, too early on a Friday morning for someone who had been sleeping in a chair for the past two nights, in a bush, trying to avoid his wife and covertly attempting to watch Draco Malfoy who was standing only five hundred meters away from him - the closest he had been since the War.

And he was looking decidedly shady just standing there in his fitted Muggle clothes with his expensive watch and his expensive shoes and his steaming cup of coffee and the weak London sun shining off hair that was as white-blonde as it had always been.

Harry glared and hoped that the force of his faze would cause the other man discomfort.

He'd had to stop by the house that morning in order to grab his invisibility cloak. It had been a calculated risk because even though he knew that Ginny would catch him - and she did - the fact that the first words he'd thought of that morning were Draco Malfoy had convinced him that it was only going to go downhill from there.

Obsessed, Hermione had called him numerous times in sixth year. Even after the War he'd been after any and all news that related to the Malfoys and Draco in particular. Ron and Hermione, in the throes of their new relationship, had fondly shaken their heads and proceeded to ignore his rants on the topic, but Ginny had fought with him about them.

She hadn't liked how fixated he was on that family, and Harry, eager to make up for leaving her behind for a year, had done his best to put Draco Malfoy out of his mind.

And he'd lain there, more or less uneasily, for the past two decades, until Hermione's casual words had brought him back up, and now Harry had this sinking feeling that he wouldn't be pushed back down again.

So he'd braved the wrath of Ginny, successfully dodging her even after she'd traced his Apparition and come after him, and now he was watching Draco Malfoy from the cover of a bush, in the midst of winter, from the corner of a Muggle apartment building.

And Draco Malfoy was definitely Up To Something.

It was a strangely comforting thought, as tough something that had been missing for years had suddenly clicked, audibly, into place.

So Harry watched and waited and glared, and when Malfoy, catching sight, apparently, of a small, brown-haired Muggle woman across the street, tore after her like the Dark Lord himself was on his heels, he set off in hot pursuit.


	2. The Plot Thickens

Disclaimer: No part of the Harry Potter universe belongs to me. Although I do claim Ellie as my own invention. 

Chapter Two – The Plot Thickens

The brown-haired woman was small but there was no denying that she was fast. She moved effortlessly through the mid-morning London crowd, slipping between and around people with a fluid, sinewy grace that reminded Harry of a dancer. Or a snake.

Draco Malfoy tore after her with the strength of a predator and all the infamous charm of the Malfoy family; meaning he rudely shoved people aside in his haste to catch up with the Muggle. 

Harry, suspecting nefarious motives, kept his invisibility cloak firmly around him and attempted to move through the crowd unnoticed and without bumping into anyone else. This proved about as successful as one might have expected for London on week-day mornings was as nightmare. Congested with people all in a rush to get somewhere, inundated with mothers grouped together in posses with strollers, bowelled over by men and women in business suits as they hurried to and from meetings, Harry made it a hundred paces before one of the Muggles was hit by him, the Invisible Wizard.

This caused mild annoyance in the man, but the next woman he bumped into thought the shove had come from a large, bald, tattooed man just behind her. This caused a minor fracas as she raised her voice in loud abuse and Harry almost got crushed by the shopping of the large, old lady behind them both.

Malfoy and the running woman were both out of sight.

Harry could all but hear Hermione’s voice inside his head. Are you an Auror, Harry, or not? Complete with her usual expression of fond exasperation.

Harry wandlessly and silently disillusioned himself and then swiftly hovered himself up to the rooftops. He rolled his invisibility cloak up into a ball and shoved it into his pocket as he ran along the roof top, avoiding vents and poles and spinning fans. He caught side of both his targets pelting down one of the side streets.

The woman was obviously a novice for she had turned down an empty alleyway, allowing Malfoy to make good use of his longer legs. He was rapidly gaining on her. Harry pelted after them. When he came to the end of the roof he waved his wand and silently cast a tricky little time-delayed, falling spell combined with a Hoovering Charm which Hermione had created several years ago.

He landed lightly onto the next roof and kept after them.

He was panting and Malfoy was gasping for breath by the time the woman ran passed a building with the words Let’s Adore and Endure Each Other graffitied across its front, and Malfoy and Harry had both caught up with her. There were very few people walking along the street. None of them paid the least bit of attention to Malfoy or the woman.  
Malfoy grabbed the woman’s arm and roughly pulled her around to face him. He was panting with exertion, but she looked perfectly composed. She bestowed a brilliant smile up at him. Harry was shocked and suspicious to note that there was no fear in her face, only mischief and recognition. 

He was right across the street from them but it was noisy and he immediately pulled out one fo the Weasley Twins’ Extendable Ears.

“You caught me,” the woman said, not sounding sorry about this at all.

“Ellie,” Malfoy said, suddenly cool and composed, every inch a Malfoy. “I’ve been hearing reports of someone matching your description and figured that it must be you. I know you too well. I knew you’d be at that coffee shop one of these mornings. You’re too addicted to the stuff to pass up a place as good as that.” Malfoy was all smug condescension. “All I had to do was wait. Time travelling again?”

The woman, Ellie, looked utterly unconcerned. She gazed up at Malfoy with a mildly speculative look on her face, head cocked to one side as if he were a puzzle. Hermione looked at her experiments that way. And occasionally at Harry.

“Did you ever stop to think that I wanted you to find me?”

Malfoy stopped smirking.

“Things have been getting out of hand. How many people have gone missing this month alone? How many of them have been children? Did you think I would not notice? Did you think that he would not notice?”

Malfoy paled.

“He’s not at all happy at being pulled out of retirement, Draco. And while it may be many years for you and all around you, remember that for him it has only been several months. He is still recovering from what has been done to him.”

“But he is alright, otherwise?” And Harry was suspicious to hear that Malfoy’s voice contained concern for this other man, whoever he was, mixed in with the fear. It did not sound like this was good news, whatever it was. It also sounded like it was highly illegal behavior. 

“He is managing.” Ellie sighed and ran a hand, distractedly, through her long brown hair. “Actually he’s a right pain in the arse. Rude, argumentative, insightfully insidious. You know how he is. But he is determined. He’s coming back. He wanted me to scout out the area for him and I’ve been helping out where I can.” She sighed. “It’s not enough. We need everything you’ve got.”

“And you’ll have it,” Malfoy agreed without hesitation. “Is your government aware of what’s going on here?”

“Yes. It is my present after all, remember. I made contact with my department head. They just want me involved at the moment, but they will send in reinforcements when it becomes necessary.”

The look of relief on Malfoy’s face hit Harry like a physical force. “Oh thank goodness. I’m not at all sure how many people I can bring into this without arousing suspicions.”

“What about your cousin? Romilda?”

Romilda? Harry thought, confused. Romilda who? The only Romilda Harry knew was Romilda Vane. And she had been a Gryffindor. And she’d had half-blood parents he remembered hearing. 

Malfoy grimaced. “She’s way too goody-two shoes for this. We can’t count on her.”

Ellie was tapping her foot impatiently now. “That’s what you said last time too. You didn’t listen to me then, and that was eighteen years ago. Look at where you are now, Draco Malfoy. Locked into a dead-end job, your wife left you years ago, your son wants nothing to do with you. The Malfoy legacy is in tatters. Your father is dead, your mother refuses to leave the grounds of the Manor. You’re basically broke, chasing smoke and shadows, and there is no hope that your fortunes will improve. Your choices haven’t exactly panned out. Maybe you should listen to me for once.”

The wind picked up, whipping white-blonde and mouse brown hair into a frenzy. They stood across from one another, the Pureblood and the Muggle, the tall, patrician-face man and the short, plain faced woman, both with arms crossed and matching glares upon their faces.

“The only thing I like about you at the moment are your eyes,” Malfoy snapped at her after a moment. Her eyes were light-colored from where Harry was squatting. He could not tell their exact shade. “You’re an aggravating bitch. Normal, well-adjusted people do not come out and say personal things like that. Especially to someone they have not seen in eighteen years.” 

She snorted. “It’s been not even a year for me. And you’re looking old. Receding hairline and all.” She smirked. “Besides I tell it like it is.”  
Despite his better judgment Harry smiled.

Malfoy just shook his head, but he did not truly look angry. After a pause he said, speaking quieter. “Actually, I think I do have someone I’m thinking of bringing in to this mess. Someone close to Potter.”

Harry started and then stilled, every nerve on alert. Surely he had misheard? 

Ellie’s eyes sharpened on the tall blonde man. “Really?” she asked skeptically. “And what makes you think that this person will listen to you?”

Malfoy smiled. “I can be quite persuasive when I want to be.”

Ellie shook her head in fond exasperation. “Well you do what you have to do. I’ll be in touch soon.” She made to turn away.

Malfoy grabbed for her arm again. He was frowning. Harry was frowning at the fact that Malfoy, pureblood extraordinaire, was so touchy with a plain-looking muggle woman. He   
pulled her back to him. “Wait, what are you going to do?”

Her grin was reckless. Harry had seen that look on the faces of the newest Auror recruits. Usually the ones who died in their first action in the Field. He’d also seen it in the faces of Fanatics. Muggle terrorists often had that light in their eyes he had found. “I’m going to cause a little trouble,” the woman told Malfoy.

Malfoy shook his head, looking like he wanted to say something but not quite sure of the words he wanted to use. 

She seemed to know what he was trying to say, regardless. “I’ll be fine. I’m always fine. I happen to other people. Remember?”

And then, to Harry’s complete and utter shock, Malfoy roughly pulled her towards him and squeezed her tightly. She looked like she couldn’t breathe properly, but she hugged him gently back. “I never thanked you. All those years ago,” Malfoy said, thickly. 

“You never had the chance,” Ellied said, gently. 

“Still. You saved them. And you saved him. And you stood up to …….. Him.” Malfoy laughed, softly. “I never heard anyone speak to him like that. Even Severus looked impressed and absolutely god smacked.”

Ellie was laughing along with him now. “And that’s exactly why it worked, so you see, I do know what I’m doing.” She pulled back and patted Malfoy on the shoulder. “Now don’t you worry and get back off to your job. All that paperwork needs to get filed.”

Malfoy shoved her. “You’re a complete menace, Ellie,” he groused.

“I’ve missed you too,” she told him before Malfoy glanced around, saw that the road was disserted, and Disapparated. The smile fell from the woman’s face then. She looked old now and tired. She shook her head and bit, as though to clear it.

“On with the show,” she muttered. 

And then she looked up, right to where Harry was squatting on the opposite roof, as though she could see him through the magic with her muggle eyes. And maybe she could because Harry felt like she was looking right into his eyes, measuring him.

And maybe she couldn’t, for all she did after a moment was shake her head in exasperation and turn around to walk eastwards along the road. Harry let her go, still too shaken to move. But he watched her retreating back until she was out of sight.

He breathed again and after a moment Apparated to Auror Headquarters. Something was seriously going on here. More than the Strickland Case. And, as usual, as Hermione had figured out and Harry had always suspected, Draco Malfoy was somehow involved with it.


	3. Friends and the Wall of Web

Disclaimer: Anything pertaining to the Harry Potter universe belongs to JK Rowling and not me. Takes place two years after the epilogue. Something dangerous is happening in the Wizarding World and Draco Malfoy is acting suspicious. Harry is sure that the two things are related. This chapter was just demanding that I write it, and it turned out much longer than expected. How do you like the interactions between Harry/Hermione and Harry/Ron?   
Just to clarify: Harry and Ginny are still married, but things are strained. Ron and Hermione are separated and Ron is seeing Pansy Parkinson. Harry is Head Auror, Hermione is an Unspeakable and Ron is a successful businessman in the pharmaceutical industry.

Chapter 3 – Friends and the Wall of Web

“I’m telling you Mione, Draco Malfoy is somehow mixed up with this whole Strickland Case thing,” Harry told her, emphatically, for what felt like the tenth time in a conversation that had been scarcely longer than ten minutes.

He could all but feel her eye-roll through the fireplace where her head was presently located. She was Flooing from her office – or what he presumed to be her office – while he was at his desk, fruitlessly reading through another batch of reports. Disappearances. There were more disappearances. Pretty soon there wouldn’t be any people left to disappear. 

Harry shuddered at the thought.

Her first question to him had been, Have you talked to Ginny, yet. He was ignoring that forceful hint as well. He would talk to his wife when he was good and ready. Or rather, argue with her. All they seemed to do these days was yell at each other, and Harry thought it was a perfectly logical solution if he just wanted to avoid her for a few days. 

Hermione thought he was being immature and cowardly.

“Yes, so you have said, repeatedly, Harry,” Hermione continued in her special voice she reserved for talking to politicians and stupid people – which was basically the same thing she had always claimed. Harry was mildly annoyed that she was directing it at him, but only mildly because he was searching for one of the reports from last week. Now where was it…….

“And I said,” Hermione continued, still in her crazy-person voice, “that you needed more information than a mildly suspicious, and undeniably ambiguous, conversation between Draco Malfoy and an unusual Muggle woman.”

“And I told you that you’re more than welcome to look at my memory of the event in a pensieve and come to your own conclusions about it. And my conclusions will be right.” Harry felt like he was five years old but that didn’t stop him from adding, “I am Head Auror, you know,” as a concluding argument.  
Hermione rolled her eyes again. Seriously, that woman had that skill down to an art form after all these years. “Yes, but we also know that systematic research has never been your strong point.”

He shot her a wounded puppy look. Oh, maybe that’s it, he got distracted trying to wedge out a tattered piece of paper from beneath all of the others.  
“Well, it’s true,” Hermione continued, “and my Department has found nothing suspicious about Draco Malfoy’s activities in all the years since the War. We have been keeping an eye on him you know,” she said, mildly reproachful. “He works his job, he tries to stay in contact with a son who has decided to go by his mother’s last name –“ Harry looked up at this news, suddenly forgetting all about his paperwork hunt. “What?” he asked.

Hermione nodded. “It’s true. He goes by Scorpius Greengrass at Hogwarts. Won’t even talk to his father.”

Harry snorted. “That doesn’t mean the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I bet you he was still sorted into Slytherin though, right?”

Hermione nodded, though she was looking at him bemusedly. “Yes, of course. But didn’t you know any of this? He is in Al and Rose’s year at school after all. Al never talks about him?”

Harry shook his head, annoyed. “Albus Severus,” he stated clearly for the millionth time, “doesn’t really talk to me about school beyond the basics of “It’s fine, Dad.”

Hermione snorted. “I’m not surprised,” was all she said on the matter. “Well, anyway, Rose talks about him all the time. She’s extremely annoyed because even though she was the one sorted into Ravenclaw, he’s got the highest grades in their year.” She shook her head, sending her bouncing curls through flames of Harry’s fireplace and shooting sparks everywhere. “He’s practically all she talks about. Al, though, doesn’t seem to mind, but then he’s always been a Ravenclaw more like Luna than like………”

“An annoying, know-it-all,” Harry suggested.

Hermione looked shocked. “Did you just call my daughter –“

“No, no, no,” Harry hastened to add, before he softened his voice. “I was thinking of you actually,” he hesitated a bit but then figured that if he couldn’t tell Hermione this, there really was no one he could tell. “And Snape. What he used to call you all the time.”

He didn’t realize it, but Hermione clearly heard the fondness, and lingering sadness, in his voice.

“I remember,” she said, equally softly despite the fact that he had really hurt her by saying that. She watched Harry fiddling with the haphazard stacks of paperwork on his desk. He never had been any good at paperwork. It tended to accumulate there and slowly disintegrate. She smiled sadly. “I miss him sometimes,” she admitted, watching carefully as   
Harry’s bright, green eyes fix suddenly back onto hers, as though desperate to hear what she would say next. “He was the surliest man I’ve ever met, but……..he was brilliant, and brave. He pushed me; harder than any teacher I’ve ever had. Did I ever tell you that he used to give me extra assignments – university level ones – and then count them as part of my overall class grade?”

“I’m really not surprised.”

“I never told you or Ron because you would have called me mental.”

“You are mental.”

“Yes, well, so are you. You miss him as well.”

Harry banged his head back down onto the desk. “He would have nothing good to say to me about this Strickland Case,” he groaned. “The miserable bastard. I can hear his voice even now. Mr. Potter, I know that you believe fame is everything and that you can just……rest on your laurels now that the war is over, but let me assure you, the dark forces behind all of this do not share your inane assertions or false confidence.” Harry looked back up at his best friend. “He would have figured it out by now.”

Hermione was noncommittal. “Perhaps.”

“Anyway, back to Malfoy. Where did you say he was working?”

Hermione suppressed a sigh. He really was obsessed; he would never change. “He’s Head of the Archives and Redundant Paperwork Division,” she said.

“He’s Head of a Division?”

“No one else works there. It’s basically a redundant department. It was created over four hundred years ago as a sap job for one of the children of the then-Headmaster of Hogwarts. Honestly Harry, haven’t you read Hogwarts, A History after all of these years?”

Harry ignored this question as he always did. Why should he read it if Hermione knew it by heart; every bloody edition and re-printing of it.

“So he organizes paperwork?”

“Basically. And he orders our stationary.”

Harry sniggered. “A far comedown for the Malfoy name.”

Hermione frowned at him. “His father committed suicide four years after the War ended,” she informed him. “Narcissa hasn’t left the house since that time, and after Astoria left him and took their son, Draco had a nervous breakdown and wasn’t seen in public for two years.”

Harry’s eyes were wide. “I remember him disappearing, but I just thought he went on Holiday or something,” he admitted. 

‘Well, he didn’t,” Hermione said, severely. She was giving him a look of disappoint reminiscent of Professor McGonagall. Harry felt like he was eleven years old again. “He works that job because the Ministry, in its infinite wisdom, saw fit to confiscate everything from the Malfoys except their manor in order to pay for War reparations.” She narrowed her eyes. Ministry incompetence, even though she was a Ministry employee, was the one thing which she never ceased to complain about. “I suspect they let them keep the manor just to watch them struggle to manage its upkeep. That’s why Malfoy married Astoria Greengrass. Her money helped a bit, until she divorced him. They lost all their House Elves. Not,” she continued fastidiously, “that I’m upset about that at all. They deserved their freedom after centuries enslaved to that…….family. However, I think we can agree, Harry, that the Malfoys have suffered enough."

“Did you know,” she continued after a moment of silence on a different tangent, “that Andromeda sends her sister money?”

“Andromeda Tonks?”

“Yes.”

“That woman scares me,” Harry admitted. For all that he had helped her raise his godson, Teddy, necessitating contact between them at least twice a week if not more, the tall, regal, black-haired witch had never ceased to make him feel like an unworthy, unwashed urchin.

“She is a bit intimidating. All the Black sisters are. Were. Anyway, apparently the sisters haven’t seen each other since the end of the war, but Andromeda mails Draco money for his mother, and he accepts it.”

Harry just stared at Hermione in silence. Even after all these years, there were times that he still didn’t understand a single thing about her. “How do you know all this?” he demanded after a moment.

“I am in the business of information after all,” she informed him, archly, before ending the call with the words, “leave Draco Malfoy alone Harry, and focus your attention on the real enemies.”

Harry frowned at the empty fireplace after she’d left. “Nobody knows what business you’re in,” he muttered after her. “That’s the whole point.”

Just then his secretary, Verna, barged through the door without knocking. As usual.

“Mr. Potter,” she told him, coolly. “Your wife is here.”

Harry flinched.  
***

“Very logical, our Hermione,” Ron agreed later, taking a swig of butterbeer later. They had never outgrown the stuff, either of them. “Doesn’t like relying on other people’s gut instincts. Considers them unreliable and frankly archaic and medieval, Ronald,” Ron quoted in a high, falsetto voice. He took another swig while Harry grunted his agreement. “’Course,” he added prosaically after a moment, “she’s usually right. When has our guts ever gotten us into any good situations.” He held up his hands, placating, at Harry’s irate look. “Yes, yes, I know that your gut has gotten us all out of a lot of trouble over the years, but you have to admit that it was the thing that got us into that trouble in the first place.”

Harry thought about this for a moment. “Whatever,” he muttered, which wasn’t a great argument but told Ron clearly that he wouldn’t be receptive to any more logic for the rest of the night.

“Are you still avoiding my sister?” Ron asked after a minute more as they both sat in comfortable silence with one another listening to the hum of muted conversation in the pub.  
Harry groaned. “Seriously?” he asked. “Is everyone in a conspiracy to get me to talk to my wife?!” he all but yelled. A couple of patrons looked over at them in mild interest before looking away again. See, this is why Harry loved coming here – some place in Knockturn Alley called The Goblin’s Head (Terribly politically incorrect he knew, but they made a killer butterbeer. Almost as good as Hogwarts.) – nobody looked twice at him. Even though he was Harry Potter and Head Auror.

Ron took a placid sip of his Butterbeer, realized that it was all but empty, and signaled for another one. “You realize how ridiculous you sound, right mate?” 

“Oh yeah?” Harry inquired nastily. “How are things between you and Pansy Parkinson?”

“Great actually,” Ron returned instantly. He smirked and Harry was supremely disturbed to recognize it as a uniquely Slytherin expression. “We made up this afternoon. All afternoon,” Ron clarified. 

Harry shuddered. “Oh god, Ron, don’t do that to me. Seriously. It’s bad enough that you’re shagging a Slytherin and Pansy Parkinson, without you putting those images into my head.”

“Nothing wrong with Pansy Parkinson, despite the fact that she’s a Slytherin, mate. Let me tell you, she’s got tits the size of –“

Harry put his hands over his ears. “Not listening!”

Ron trailed off and Harry cautiously took his hands away from his head. “Insult my girlfriend again and I’ll tell you in which positions we like to do it in,” Ron said, calmly. He didn’t seem angry, but he did seem firm on this point. “And besides, I work with Slytherins all day. Who do you think runs my business? They’re really not that bad. Sneaky buggers, though,” he said, affectionately.

Harry sighed and decided not to push it. “Yes, I talked to Ginny,” he told his best mate.

“Way I heard it, she ambushed you at work.”

“Have you been suborning my Secretary again?”

“Verna likes me.” Ron was smug.

“Great,” Harry muttered. “I’m glad she likes somebody.” The most he got out of her when he tried on the charm was a withering look. Ron got free information and, he suspected, baked goods. Verna was rumored to be married to a Baker. Ron was keeping mum on the entire subject. Traitor.

Harry tried a new track. “Draco Malfoy is still definitely up to something.”

“So go find out what it is,” Ron told him.

Harry, surprised by this sudden support when both Ginny and Hermione had both, in no uncertain terms, told him to drop the entire subject, 

“Look, I know you, Harry. You’ll never be easy until you find out what he’s up to. If he’s up to anything. And the faster you figure it out, the sooner you can get back to the Strickland Case. And maybe, this quick break will give you a new perspective to crack this thing.” Ron, unusually serious, leaned forward until he and Harry were almost nose to nose. “You know that if you need anything, mate, anything at all that I’m here for you.”

Harry smiled. “Yeah, Ron, I do know that.”

“Just talk to Ginny, alright.”

Harry sighed.  
***

Hermione stood in front of the long bare wall opposite the door to her office. At least it was ordinarily a bare wall. Hermione was a notes kind of girl. She organized her research on sheets of paper, which were, she would grant, heavily color-coded and arranged in such a way that only she would ever be able to discern the pattern. There were whole bookshelves on her other three walls covered in muggle binders filled with notes from long finished cases. 

Hermione had always been very thorough with her note taking. 

This case though, the Strickland Case, was different. And Hermione didn’t like it.

None of the pieces fit the way they were supposed to. And when they did fit, they fit to some many different things that it was as confusing as if they had fit to nothing. Hermione was thinking herself into circles and she definitely didn’t like that. So she had built the Wall of Web.

First she’d spelled her office so completely and tightly that not even the late Dumbledore himself – with Voldemort’s assistance – could break through. She had never worried about that before in Unspeakable Headquarters. Offices were located far apart, on many different floors and down many different winding corridors for just this specific reason. Unspeakables were naturally secretive; it came with the profession. But ward her office she had.

Second, she had cleared off the entire wall behind her desk, pushing her desk far forwards in order that she could pace behind it. 

Third, she’d tried several different options. First had come the old-fashioned chalk-board. It smudged too easily and all that white made her confused. Second had come a dry erase board with multiple colored markers. Same problem with the smudging – once she’d lost an entire train of thought by brushing past too close to the board – and she kept drawing more and more lines between related factors that she ran out of color and could no longer tell where any of the lines went.

So the Wall of Web had been born. It looked, she privately admitted to herself, like something someone off her meds would create.

Strips of paper, cut-outs from newspapers, copied notes from textbooks, random equations: all were tapped to the wood wall. And then came the string. There were many colors of string, ranging the entire spectrum of the rainbow. Hermione thought that perhaps over one hundred colors could be found on her Wall.

With tacks she had attached the string between the pieces of paper. And then attached more. And more. Gradually the wall and the string had expanded to encroach upon the other two walls adjacent. It was still growing.

But none of it made any sense!

Hermione was beyond frustrated. She was exhausted and her brain felt like it was going to explode at any moment from anger and uselessness and overuse. She was running on coffee and adrenaline and fear.

It was a fear that she didn’t show even to Harry.

Harry was stressed too, and he was equally as good at hiding it from people – that’s what happened after twenty years in the Auror Division – but he did not know even a quarter of what she knew. The Unspeakables had always been very apt at acquiring information. It was one of the many reasons Hermione had chosen to work for them after quitting her social and political career. But although the Hermione loved information, she had always half-known, and had quickly come to realize first-hand, that information was a burden as much as a way to acquire both power and freedom. 

Knowledge had consequences. And for her those consequences meant that she felt personally responsible for not figuring out this Case yet.  
People disappeared every week. That he did know. He sent his Aurors out to search for them, to investigate their family and friends, to track down their last known whereabouts. 

The Auror Department was on full alert; they had been for several months.

But none of those people had ever been found.

Hermione had been convinced at the beginning that there was a logical, and easily predictable, pattern behind who was disappeared. At first she had looked at attacks on Muggle-borns and those with muggle blood in them. It was true that many of them had been taken, but not exclusively. 

Then she had looked at the old Pureblood families. Maybe someone was getting revenge for what happened during the War? She looked at old blood – both pure like the Malfoys and the Blacks – but also at those individuals – like Andromeda Black – who had married into other blood-lines.

Still no luck. Although more of these matched the profile than the first search.

She looked if it was just children being taken – mostly but not exclusively, whether it had something to do with intermingling with other races – like Fleur and her family and their   
strain of Veela, or whether any old people had been taken at all – yes, although very few. This was not it either.

She looked at monetary, social status, political affiliations, work situations, friends connection and their (or their family’s) alignment during the War.

Nothing.

And then some of the people had started turning up dead. While other people were just found dead in their homes. It was like there were two things going on; murders and disappearances.

And she was beyond frustrated.

Nothing was making sense.

And the really strange thing was that not only were people disappearing, but certain magical artifacts were as well. And something really strange, really really strange, was happening with the Magic itself. 

Hermione hadn’t been placed on that investigation, although she was fairly sure that Luna Lovegood and Padma Patil – who had been partners in the Unspeakable Experimental Charms Division for decades – had been. She had been tasked with working alongside the Auror Division to locate the missing people, but Hermione – with her Wall of Web expanding daily – was more and more convinced that everything was connected somehow in a way that she could not fathom.

And although she’d never tell Harry, she had a sneaking suspicion that Draco Malfoy was somehow involved with it all.

She tugged her hair in aggravation and threw down her quill. She needed coffee.  
****

Notes: What do you think? I’m thinking of having Harry actually explain the Strickland Case next chapter on one of his Auror missions. Are you liking Harry, Hermione and Ron so far? What do you think of Ellie? And Draco?


	4. Auror Cases and Coffee Shops

Disclaimer: No part of Harry Potter belongs to me. I just borrow it when the muse demands. 

Chapter Four – Auror Cases and Coffee Shops

Verna told Harry to go home at 10 pm. In fact, her exact words were, “Mr. Potter, I am not staying here another second, so either you go home so that I can, or I Stun you and deposit your sorry self on your front step.”

That had been the end of that.

Harry tiredly unlocked his front door and kept the light off as he pulled off his shoes. The kids were all at Hogwarts and the house was silent except for Ginny. Hopefully she was asleep.

This was Lily’s first year at Hogwarts and already, although Halloween had not yet come, she was loving it and fitting in magnificently. Harry had thought, at first, that her House might prove a problem in the extended Weasley family for she had chosen Slytherin. However, when Harry and Ginny had broached the news at one of the Weasleys’ Sunday Dinners and the furor had started, Ginny had stood up and shouted them all into silence.

“Al and Rose are in Ravenclaw! Does this make them less than Weasleys? We are proud that two of our own are in the House that values Intelligence. Should we be less than proud that Lily has entered the House that values Ambition? It means my daughter has great dreams, that she will achieve great things. And that is all that it tells me!

Then she had hesitated, purposefully. Harry had felt like grinning. Ginny always had been a natural performer, craving the crowd’s attention, their every breath hanging on her words. “Oh, wait, that’s not quite true,” she had said, sly as a Slytherin herself. “It tells me that my daughter is brave, full of courage and strength, for she chose to accept the House she was placed in, in spite of the fact that she knew very well what her family and the rest of the Wizarding World would say!

“Harry Potter’s daughter, a Slytherin!,” she spat. “That’s what they’ll say, and here, her own family can’t even accept it!”

She had stood up right on the kitchen table and informed them in no uncertain terms that the first person she heard mocking or criticizing her daughter for her House, or insinuating anything at all based on where she was Sorted, would receive a Bat-Bogey Hex such as they would never forget the rest of their lives.

And Ron had seconded her by announcing that he was seeing Pansy Parkinson and that he would be bringing her to the next Weasley Sunday Dinner. With his mother’s permission of course.

Mrs. Weasley had looked vaguely apoplectic, but she had given a terse nod. The table had been utterly silent as Ginny jumped off the table and took her place between Harry and Ron. She had smiled gratefully at her closest brother, but when Harry, for the first time in months, had reached out to touch her hand she had all but flinched away from him. 

Her brown eyes had shot up, hesitantly, towards his own and she had given him a small smile but there had been no true joy there, no happiness at a partner beside her. It was the look of a stranger towards someone she no longer trusted.

Harry had been quiet then, for the rest of the dinner, listening with half an ear to the rowdy discourse of his adopted family, and with the other part of himself going over how he and Ginny could have fallen so far apart.

It had happened gradually, this distance, although it had become much more noticeable after Albus Severus had left to go to Hogwarts. Lily had noticed it of course. If James had inherited all the Potter pride, Lily and Albus Severus had inherited what Harry suspected to be his own mother’s keen intelligence and observation.

Of course his daughter had also inherited Ginny’s fire, given that she had fearlessly entered the Serpent’s Den. And not only had she survived there, but she was thriving. Harry was both glad for her and somewhat wary. His prejudice against Slytherins ran deep. He had never met a good one, except Snape, and he always remembered Dumbledore telling the man that perhaps he should have been sorted into Gryffindor instead.

Even now, though he had been so proud of Ginny’s stance, he was unsure how he felt about Lily being in Slytherin. Perhaps she knew that for her letters to him were overly formal and bland; they touched only on generalities. He wondered what she was writing to Ginny.

He sighed and shuffled into the kitchen. The place was a complete disaster; Ginny had obviously not straightened up this evening before going to bed.

Harry turned on the light and pulled out the remnants of dinner. He heated it with a Warming Charm and made a manly effort to swallow it down. Ginny had never been much of a cook.

They had been so in love, Harry and Ginny, in the beginning. After Voldemort’s defeat they had been all but inseparable. Even Ron and Hermione – sickening sweethearts themselves – had rolled their eyes whenever Harry and Ginny had been together.

‘Childhood Sweethearts’ The Prophet had dubbed them. Picture after picture they had taken of them. “A repeat of the past’, ‘A Tragedy Rectified’, ‘James and Lily Live Again’, were the headlines that had followed them. Ginny, with her long red hair and lively personality, and Harry with his traditional Potter looks were nearly a dead ringer for Harry’s long-dead parents.

He sighed, apathetically stirring his now-lukewarm dinner. Perhaps that was where they went wrong. Perhaps they had been merely trying to re-create the past, convinced that it was everlasting love because of the mystique which still surrounded the saint James and Lily Potter.

Perhaps it had had something to do with the War. That was Hermione’s pet theory. War breeds a closeness, and adrenaline rush, which does not last often in peacetime, she was fond of saying to him. They had all lost so much, seen so much death and destruction that was it any wonder they held on so tightly to childhood friends? Held on tight enough to marry them? Have children with them? Face the unknown, forever changed world with them still by their sides?

Our entire generation has post-traumatic stress disorder, Hermione would say. If the Wizarding World were more up to date in mental health care, perhaps the divorce rate now wouldn’t be so startling. Perhaps we wouldn’t have gotten it all wrong. 

Or perhaps we’d still be messed up, but we’d just have a name for it, Harry would argue back. Does that make it any better?

Hermione would shake her head. Neither of them had an answer to that question.

Harry sighed, felt someone standing behind him, turned quickly and saw a red-haired monster standing behind him.

A girlish scream sounded throughout the room. Afterwards Harry felt himself turning as red as Ginny’s hair, for of course it was she.

“Merlin’s Balls,” she snapped, rubbing an ear with an annoyed expression on her face. “What is wrong with you?”

“Don’t sneak up on me then,” Harry snapped back, embarrassed by his outburst. Experienced Aurors did not react to danger that way. And certainly not to their wives that way. This was not the way he wanted to meet with Ginny again after their uncomfortable talk yesterday. She had demanded he come home once in a while, he had stated with finality that he was too busy at work right now, that people were dying all over the place. She had said that it felt like he had died for the time he spent with her. And then she had stormed out.

Verna’s expression had told him all he needed to know about whose side she was on. After his drinks with Ron last night he had gone back to the office – making sure that Verna had long since left – and slept once again in his uncomfortable desk chair.

Today he had decided to make an effort. Nobody had died in three days. Nobody had disappeared either. He would come home tonight and sort things out with Ginny in the morning. Besides Verna had all but chased him out of the office with a harpoon. After he had made her a lovely breakfast in bed, they could discuss things in a rational, adult-like manner. 

Except here she was, standing before him, in the kitchen, in the middle of the night. Yelling at him. Not according to plan at all.

“I do live here, you know! In case you haven’t noticed after all these years!”

“What on earth are you talking about? Of course I’ve noticed. We have three children together!”

“One would never know that for all the time you spent with them as they were growing up!”

“I was extremely involved with them. I was at every quidditch game, every play!”

“Really?” Ginny yelled, sarcasm dripping from every syllable. “I must had missed all that when everyone kept asking where you were and if I was even MARRIED!”

“Somebody needed to help rebuild the Wizarding World!”

“And SOMEBODY needed to help RAISE OUR CHILDREN!” Ginny screamed.

Harry stood up, chair flying backwards. Ginny took a step forwards, right into his personal space, red hair frizzing angrily, brown eyes flashing with fire. She glared up at him.

“Yes?” she snapped, “do you have something to say to that?” 

Harry narrowed his green eyes at her. There was a coldness in them that caused even Ginny, with all her fierceness, to fear for a moment. “No, I have nothing to say to you,” he said, voice tight with control and suppressed anger. He turned to walk away from her.

“No, that’s right!” Ginny yelled after him. “You never have ANYTHING to say to me! You never talk to me, you never TALK to our children. You think everything is more important than WHERE YOU ARE IN THIS MOMENT! And you know what,” she screamed – he was already in their room, closing the bathroom door – “I’VE HAD JUST ABOUT ENOUGH!”

That sounded particularly final to Harry. Somehow he couldn’t bring himself to care enough to go after her.

He was just so bloody tired.

***

“You look like Hell,” Romilda Vane, one of his Senior Aurors, said to him first thing next morning when he stumbled into the office. Verna, sitting behind her at her desk, gave him a narrowed eyed glare. Obviously she agreed with this assessment, although she probably assumed other causes then what had actually happened.   
Romilda thrust coffee into his hands. She had obviously been waiting for him.

“You have something to report,” Harry murmured redundantly. “Come in,” he waved her into his office. It was a terrible mess, as usual. Harry pointed her to the only other chair in the room. “Just dump those papers on the floor,” he told her wand watched, with some amusement, as she gingerly picked up the hap-hazard stack and gently deposited it onto the floor by her feet.

Then she took a seat and fixed him with her dark eyes. She had come a long way from the girl who had tried to slip him love potions during their Hogwarts days, but there were times when her dark gaze reminded him uncomfortably of someone else.

Today, right here, right now, was one of those times.

He tried to shake off his unease and give his subordinate his full attention. Romilda had been nothing but competent, and even exemplary, her entire time with the Department. 

According to the rumor mill that was an Auror office, she had lost three fingers in the Battle of Hogwarts fighting Dolohov, and had even dueled Bellatrix Lestrange.

Harry looked up into the patrician nose, dark hair and dark eyes of the woman in front of him. He shook his head sharply. Everything was blurry and blending into everything else.  
He hadn’t slept well last night. He’d come out to find that Ginny had not come up to bed but had elected to spend the night on the couch downstairs. He had proceeded to spend the rest of his supposed-sleeping hours lying awake and feeling guilty about this. 

He’d snuck out really early this morning, gone for a run, and then picked up a bite to eat before stumbling into the office an hour early.

Apparently not early enough for the entire Department seemed to be here ahead of him.

“Rough night, Boss?” the woman across form him tossed out cheekily.

Harry was long used to her irreverent sense of humor. He rubbed red eyes tiredly. “You could say that,” he agreed. “What’s up?”

“We’ve had another one.” And just like that Auror Vane was all seriousness. She leaned forward and placed a file in front of him. Harry opened it but the words swam in front of his eyes.

He closed it again. “Summarize it for me.”

“There’s been another one. Another murder,” she elaborated before he could ask. “Do you remember old Griselda Marchbanks? On the Hogwarts OWLs Board?”

“She’s still alive?” Harry asked in wonderment.

“Not anymore,” Romilda said grimly. “Found dead in her living room this morning by neighbors who smelt something really bad. Our first response team believes she was killed at least a week ago. It was very messy. We thought you’d want to take a look at this one, Boss. It’s different than all the others.”

“Different how?” Harry asked. But he was already grabbing his cloak and following her out the door.

**** 

The first time Hermione Granger saw Draco Malfoy after Harry had told her he was acting suspicious, was in a little café in a discrete corner of Diagon Alley. 

It was usually a quiet, sun-filled little place with great scones and a peaceful atmosphere, but today that atmosphere was ruined by the presence of a tall, blond git. Why, oh why, could she not escape from the name ‘Draco Malfoy’ this week? She wondered tiredly. 

She’d been up all night with her Wall of Web, had made absolutely no progress, kept returning to Harry’s conversation about Malfoy and his mysterious conversation, and now the first person she ran into this morning was Draco bloody Malfoy.

She watched him out of the corner of her eye as she ordered a scone with cream and a cup of English Breakfast tea. She loved tea. In fact, she thought she would marry tea if she could get away with it. Delicious, warmth-filled beverage of caffeine goodness. And none of the bitterness of coffee to get in the way of her enjoyment.

Malfoy was sitting at a small, flower-patterned table next to the sunny window, a newspaper in front of his face and a tall, steaming cup of coffee in the other. He was inhaling the liquid like

His robes were extremely fashionable and expensive. That’s suspicious, considering he has no money, Hermione thought to herself. They were also an extremely flattering shade of silver-blue that went perfectly with his silver-blond hair and pale, pointed features. 

He might never be called handsome, the Malfoy scion, but there was something undeniably distinguished and patrician and……..old-world about him.

Hermione glanced down at her rumpled, out-of-date maroon robes and ran a finger through unkempt, frizzy brown hair. She felt downright grungy in comparison and damned Draco Malfoy to all Seven Hells for making her feel this way this early in the morning.

It could only go downhill from here.

She sighed as she accepted her scone and tea and deliberated on a place to sit. Might as well start as she meant to go on, and all that. Harry was suspicious of Draco Malfoy, and frankly so was she. She might as well attempt to find out what he was up to.

She sat down one table away from him and nonchalantly started eating her scone. She snuck quick glances at him out of the corner of her eyes as she deliberated the best way to start up a conversation. She had just about decided on the time-honored tradition of ‘Hello’, when he spoke without looking up.

“Yes, Granger, can I help you with something?” Draco Malfoy’s voice hadn’t changed one bit in all the years since she had last heard him speak. It was still all cut-glass tones and haughty inflections. 

She rolled her eyes.

“Can it, Malfoy,” she told him, forcefully. “I don’t need you smarmily asking me questions after the day that I’ve been having.”

Flabbergasted grey eyes shot up to hers. Hermione smirked internally; she wasn’t an Unspeakable for nothing. Throwing people off of balance was an acquired specialty of hers. 

She tilted her head and gave him a distinctly smug smile. “I was just looking at you because I haven’t been this close to you since the War ended. We did go to school together, if you remember –“

“How could one forget that bushy hair and obnoxious personality?” Malfoy asked blandly.

Hermione dropped the smile and glared. Her hair was not bushy. “ – And,” she continued, louder, “that is what people do to school acquaintances they haven’t really seen in twenty years. By the way, that’s a lovely receding hairline you’ve got there, Malfoy.”

He snorted. “And is that grey in your hair doing you any favors, Granger?”

“Well, at least I have a good job, unlike some people with fancy pedigrees and a lack of brains.”

“What is it, exactly, that you do again, Granger?” He leaned forward, across the small aisle that separated their spindly little tables, until his face was quite close to hers. “Oh yes, that’s right, you can’t talk about it. That is the whole catch with Unspeakables, right? You can never talk about your work. Must have made your marriage difficult, all that secrecy………but I forgot, Weasley dumped you, didn’t he?”

There was delighted malice in Draco Malfoy’s tone and Hermione, for the first time, realized that maybe she had assumed things about him that were by no means true. She had thought that he would be broken, defeated, worn down by a life-time of disappointments and defeats. All bark and no bite.

But it seemed that he was alive and kicking, and that he’d only grown more dangerous over the years. He had hit her right where it hurt the most – and she didn’t have many weak spots.

She narrowed her eyes at him, refusing to show that he’d struck home. But he knew it anyway if that malicious light in his grey eyes was any indication.

“Couldn’t even hold onto the Weasel,” he reiterated. “How did that feel, Granger?” he asked her, like a sick parody of a shrink.

Hermione’s hands clenched into fists, but before she could decide whether to leave or retaliate, someone came up behind her and punched Draco Malfoy in the shoulder.

“That wasn’t very nice at all, Draco,” a small, brown-haired woman said, sitting down in the empty seat at Draco’s table and pulling the metal chair noisily around until she was sitting right next to him. “Seriously, what are you guys, twelve? You’re bickering like school children.” Her accent was English RP, something high-class, like she had been educated at private schools and Oxbridge all her life. For she was unmistakably Muggle given the fashion of her clothing, and her utter comfort with them.

Even Muggle Borns were never that good at choosing Muggle clothes after a lifetime in the WIzarding World.

“One of us is,” Hermione muttered, aggrieved and mulling quickly over possibilities. This must be that woman, Ellie, which Harry had seen with Malfoy the other day.

“Well, one of us is a – “

Ellie clamped her hand over Draco’s mouth. “Shut up,” she told him, mildly. Then she turned to Hermione, extending the hand that wasn’t still clamped over Malfoy’s mouth. Oh, if looks could kill, Hermione thought delightedly at the look Malfoy shot the brown-haired muggle, shaking the hand offered her.

“Eleanor Montgomery,” she introduced herself. Her face was small and pale, her hair a mouse brown color, and her eyes a muddy green. She was utterly unremarkable say for a certain vibrancy in her personality. There was a zest in the way she sat, a crispness in her movements, and a sharpness in her gaze. She was at least a decade younger than Hermione and Draco, but the forcefulness in her eyes as she watch Hermione coolly made her seem much older, more in control.

Hermione straightened up and returned a level stare of her own.

“So you’re the woman Harry said Malfoy here was meeting the other day,” she said, deciding to go right on the attack. “He told me he thought you had spotted him through the Disillusionment Spell.”

“Let’s just say that I saw him spying on Draco from a bush, figured he’d follow us, and made an educated guess as to where he would watch us from.”

Malfoy opened his mouth in indignation, got his foot promptly stomped on by Eleanor Montgomery, and closed it again.

“How do you know Malfoy?” Hermione asked. “Bit unusual, a Malfoy voluntarily talking to a Muggle. And I heard there was even hugging involved.” Hermione couldn’t help baiting him. Not even Ron was this fun to needle. She suppressed the sharp pang that thought brought with violence.

“Why, was he jealous?” Malfoy snapped, peevishly. “Honestly, it’s been twenty years and all Potter can do is follow me around. Doesn’t he have any other hobbies!” he demanded of the world at large. He whirled on Hermione. “And what do you mean it’s a ‘bit unusual’ me hanging out with a muggle? What do you know about my social life? I could have tons of muggle friends for all you know. Don’t you think you’re being prejudiced and bigoted?”

“Yeah, you and your Dark Mark are the open, tolerant ones,” Hermione returned.

The café owner looked at the riotous little group with dislike.

“Draco and I met during the War,” Eleanor said calmly, ignoring Malfoy’s outburst and Hermione’s arguing. “He introduced me to some charming friends of his. Oh, and the muggle doesn’t really like being referred to as ‘the Muggle,’” she added lightly. There was steel underneath all that posh.

“Sorry,” Hermione said instantly.

Malfoy shrugged. Eleanor shoved him playfully.

“Wait, what do you mean you met Malfoy during the war? How old were you, six?”

“I’m older than I look.”

Hermione’s next question was on the tip of her tongue when she noticed that both of them were looking at her like they already knew it.

“I was a captive. Muggle sport for them to torture and kill. Brought in with a dozen others.” Eleanor’s voice was very gentle. “Narcissa Malfoy tried to save the children. In her own way.”

“And somehow you survived?” Hermione probed, gently, hesitantly. There was a lot more to this story than she felt either of them were going to tell her.

Malfoy’s voice was filled with glee as he cut in, “She told the Dark Lord exactly where he could go shove his wand, proceeded to cause absolute chaos within the Manor, and then escaped out the window – we were on the third floor mind you – with the nearest child and escape. With all the Death Eaters after her I might add.”

Hermione looked back at Eleanor Montgomery. 

She raised an eyebrow at Hermione.

Malfoy looked back and forth between them, smirked, and drank the rest of his coffee. 

“And after you escaped from his house you suddenly became bosom buddies,” Hermione finished, sarcastically. 

Malfoy and Eleanor shared a glance. 

“Yup.”

“Pretty much.”

“Well, we should get going. Nice meeting you, Hermione Granger.”

“Can’t say I was thrilled to meet you again, Granger.”

“Hopefully I’ll see you around.”

“Hopefully I won’t.”

“Draco, that’s rude.”

“So is your face,” he told her cheerfully.

And then they were out the door. As it closed behind them Hermione heard Eleanor Montgomery say, “I like her.”

Malfoy was resigned. “Somehow I knew you would.”

And then they were gone.

That had to have been the weirdest conversation with…….anyone, really…….that she had ever had in her life. 

****

Notes: Sorry. This chapter just got away from me. I was having so much fun writing Harry/Ginny and Draco/Hermione that I ran out of room and impetus to describe what the Strickland Case actually is. Ah well, next chapter. How’s it coming? Do you have any ships yet? I have pairings for this story which will become apparent over time, but I want to know where you think this is all going. Cheers. And please review. I can’t tell if anyone actually likes this story besides me.


	5. Old Enemies and New Research

Disclaimer: I do not own anything from the world of Harry Potter. Except Eleanor Montgomery. This chapter goes into some backstory for the Strickland Case. And Narcissa makes an appearance. Oh, and Draco and Harry finally interact. Yay! Now on with the show.

Chapter 5 – Old Enemies and New Research

 

Harry and Agent Vane Apparated to the small, northen, wizarding village of Dowling’s Valley. Like Ottery St. Catchpole it was remote, with rolling green hills surrounding it and the nearest interstate out of sight and sound. Unlike the Weasley’s warm, marsh-bound property however, Dowling’s Valley was cold and windy and wet. Grey rocks jutted up harshly from the lush landscape, a reminder of the inhospitable nature of the very Earth this far north. 

Harry knew that they were somewhere to the north and west of Hogwarts. He vaguely wondered what his children were up to and if James was behaving himself. He had received an owl from Lily last night hinting at possible shenanigans – many of them involving pranks on Slytherins – that boded ill for James’ academic career, and his social life when Ginny grounded him during the Holdiays.

A gust of icy cold wind whipped past and through the two Aurors. Harry shivered and grabbed his cloak more tightly around him. His hands were already turning blue. Romilda, on the other hand, hardly seemed to notice the cold when he turned to look at her. The woman’s thick black hair was whipping around her, but her pale skin was peaceful, without strain, as though she were walking softly through a calm, warm, spring day instead of the gales of Scotland in late Fall.

She felt his gaze upon her and gave him a tight smile.

“Have the Unspeakables made any progress?” she asked him.

Harry wordlessly shook his head, struck once again by the black eyes that looked at him from that pale face surrounded by a halo of dark hair. He could not, for the life of him, place those features, but they were so very, very familiar.

She raised an eyebrow at him.

Now she looked like Malfoy.

Harry scowled at the thought, shook his head to tell his subordinate that it was nothing to do with her, and turned back to the dirt road they were currently following. It was winding its way up a medium sized grass-covered hill. As they toiled to the top – well as Harry toiled and Romilda seemed to glide up it, curse her – they saw the tall, three story house of the Marchbanks below them. 

Old Griselda Marchbanks had come from a prominent pureblood family, many of whom had died on the Continent fighting the Dark Lord Grindelwald during the 40s. The Wizard whom Griselda had married had died then as well and she had remained single since that time.

Harry, used to the Muggle world of constant divorce and remarriage, had found this strange at first when Hermione had explained to him that Purebloods married once, for life. And even if it was only a betrothal, or an engagement, that they still considered themselves bound to that person, even when that witch and wizard was no longer on this earth.  
It was Romilda who told him, as they walked down that hill to the Marchbanks’ house, that Griselda’s brother, nephew and great-nephew had all been killed in the First War against Voldemort, leaving her the last of her bloodline.

And now she was gone as well.

It had been a death which had started this whole mess to begin with; a death which had taken place almost a year ago now. Harry’s mind inexorably pulled him back, going over the events for what had to be the one millionth time.

It had been on Christmas Eve, of last year, during which Harry had been called away from the quiet Potter/Granger-Weasley dinner which had been a tradition on Christmas Eve since both Harry and Ginny, and Ron and Hermione had gotten their own homes after the War. Last year’s had been particularly difficult given the nature of Ron and Hermione’s divorce. They had not even tried to have the dinner the year before, but this year both Ron and Hermione had promised to be on their best behavior, and Ginny had promised to do the cooking – loathe though she was to undertake this endeavor – and they had attempted it again.

But then Auror Hempston’s head had appeared in Harry’s fireplace informing him that Constantine Strickland, the Wizarding World’s pre-eminent historian, had been found murdered in his own home, and that his presence was required. Immediately.

Hermione had gone with him.

That had been another thing that Ginny was angry about.

Constantine Strickland had been old. As old as Dumbledore. In fact his long, flowing white beard and wise, lined face had looked so like Dumbledore’s for a moment that Harry, looking down at his twisted body lying in a pool of blood, had felt sixteen again. Had felt like he was losing his mentor all over again.

And then he had seen Draco Malfoy, surrounded by Aurors, sitting on the floor to one side of the room. And he had all but snapped.

Later he had learned that the only reason he hadn’t killed Malfoy was because of Romilda and Hermione both tackling him at the same moment. They’d born him to the floor and the other Aurors had hauled Malfoy off to the kitchen until Harry had cooled down.

According to the reports filed afterwards, Malfoy had been visiting Strickland about the representation of the Malfoy family in Strickland’s newest book. (Oh course, Harry had thought, Malfoy was concerned about his image. As if anyone could write anything more pathetic than the truth of what happened.) He had stepped away for two minutes to go to the bathroom, had heard the sounds of a struggle and wisely (cowardly) stayed in the bathroom until they had ceased. “I am no fighter,” Malfoy had said. “It sounded like many others and I could do no good blindly and recklessly charging to the rescue, like some brainless Gryffindor. He was already dead. It made more sense for me to hide and then report on what I found to the authorities.”

Not that Malfoy had had much to report, hiding in the bathroom.

Constantine Strickland had had no enemies that the Auror Department could find. And yet there he had lain, body contorted at an odd angle – legs one way, arms the other, head facing backwards – with multiple lacerations all over his body. He had been Silencioed and then left to bleed out on his own carpet.  
Whatever he had been working on – that latest historical work Malfoy had been so keen to make sure represented his family correctly – had been taken as well.  
It had looked like a murder for the acquisition of those papers. Someone or several someones had not wanted whatever Constantine Strickland was going to write, to come to the attention of the general public. 

Harry would have locked Malfoy up in a heartbeat, for he had motive and was there at the scene of the crime, had they found any proof of illegal activity. But his wand had been clean, his movements for the past several days had all checked out, and even under Veritaserum he had revealed no more than what he had told to the Aurors of his own free will.

So Malfoy was ruled out.

Although Harry was, of course, still suspicious. 

They had looked at every angle, followed every lead, hunted down every potential clue.

Nothing. They’d closed the case until new information could be brought to light. But no one had been too concerned. Constantine Strickland had been a recluse; ornery and haughty and alone. He’d had no friends and no living family. No one had really cared that he’d died.

But Harry had.

And then, two months later, another murder had taken place. Multiple lacerations, body contorted at an odd angle. A Potions Master – Valentina Bulstode. Several pages of her journal had been torn out. Her potions lab had been ransacked.

And then Ollivander had turned up dead. No one could tell if anything of his had been stolen. Only he would have known. But the odds of probability were…….

And then the disappearances had started.

The Unspeakables had gotten involved at some point. The entire Auror Department had been put on high alert, and every available team not working on other emergencies had been put to work on what came to be known as the Strickland Case.

No one had made any substantial progress. Not even Hermione. And the Wizarding World was slowly descending into a muted kind of panic; one which had not been seen since the death of Voldemort over twenty years ago.

It was too soon, Harry had wanted to rage at the universe. At God. Didn’t he deserve a break? Couldn’t he have gone the rest of his life without any other world-ending events taking place? Apparently not.

And now everyone was looking at him to fix this. They wanted their Chosen One to get up on his white horse and charge to the rescue. Save the maiden and slay the dragon. He read it in their eyes everywhere he went. The problem was, though, that he had no idea in which direction to point the horse. Or even what the dragon looked like.

This was an enemy which stayed in the shadows; which thrived in the shadows, masking both motive and methods and goals.

Fascinating, Hermione called it when it was just her and Harry and she had forgotten how many lives this case had claimed already. When she was lost in the research. Bloody annoying, was what Harry called it. He had always like his cases to be straight forward. Open and shut. And this was anything but.

Harry frowned down at the body of Griselda Marchbanks here and now in the present. Romilda Vane was a silent, comforting presence at his side.

The old woman – ancient really. Harry had no idea how she still tottered out of bed, seriously her skin looked like paper! – was dressed in her nightgown. No robe had been thrown over it, so she had obviously gotten rapidly out of bed.

Or gone down the hall for a pee.

Or been dragged out of her bed and arranged in the living room.

Harry sighed and rubbed his temples, aggrievedly. He hated clues. There were always too many of them, with too many different explanations, for anything to make any kind of sense. Damn Sherlock Holmes and his instant scanning of a situation. Harry didn’t believe that worked in real life for an instant. He’d had too much personal experience with it not working. 

Old Ms. Marchbanks was lying contorted on her carpet just like the others had been. Legs one way, arms another, head twisted backwards.

“What was taken?” Harry asked.

Auror Thompson – twenty-five years old, young and eager, Harry felt tired just looking at him – stepped forward smartly. “We’re not sure yet, sir,” he reported. “But the cellar and attic look to have both been ransacked, as well as a hidden room located behind the library. We’ve contacted Gringotts for an inventory of the estate. Hopefully we’ll have an answer soon.”

Harry nodded. “So something looks to have been taken. The body is in the same strange contortions as the other murders. What’s different about this one?”

Romilda stepped forward and gently, so very gently, pulled a piece of the dead woman’s nightgown away from her body. Harry crouched down next to her.

“These wounds were made with some sort of blade,” came a different female voice. Harry glanced up to meet the gaze of Padma Patil. The Unspeakable was wearing dark robes, her hair was a mess and she looked exhausted. “We were tracking permutations in the Apparition field,” she explained to Harry. She glanced down at the dead woman. “We were too late.”

Harry could see that for himself, thank you very much. “Made by some sort of blade,” he said, instead. “What kind?”

“We don’t know yet,” Padma admitted. “Hermione’s best with research. Malcolm Creevey’s taken pictures of the wounds and we’ll give them to her to match up. I suspect that it’s some kind of ceremonial knife, though,” she added, as though she didn’t want Harry to think she was totally incompetent at her job.

“What makes you think that?”

But Padma wouldn’t say.

It was late afternoon by the time Harry could get away from the crime scene to return to the office. Auror Vane went with him.

“I’m starting to think that you’re my personal bodyguard,” he attempted to joke with her as they waited to floo to the Ministry Atrium. It fell flat, and she gave him a look of derision.

“Boss, now is not the time to be making jokes,” she said severely. Harry shrugged. Stress affected him in odd ways. “And besides,” she continued, “Verna expressly told me not to let you out of my sight today.”

Harry looked at her, flabbergasted. “So now you’re taking orders from my secretary? When did she become the Head of this Department?” he demanded.

Romilda shrugged, unapologetic. “She’s scary. Reminds me of McGonagall.”

Harry just grunted. He wasn’t going to tell her this, but Verna scared him too.

They stepped out together, heading towards the Lifts to take them up to the Fifth Floor and the Auror Department. There were a lot of people around today, for a Saturday afternoon. Weak sunlight filtered down from enchanted windows at the top. The light glinted off the black, shiny stones which made up the Ministry Atrium. It sparkled off the gold in the fountain. 

And then it flashed off the white-blonde hair of Draco Malfoy.

He really does have a receding hairline, Harry thought inanely, before he had slammed into the other man and born him straight back into a wall. His hands were around Malfoy’s throat.

He was dimly aware of Romilda off to one side of him, demanding that he release Malfoy.

He was more aware of Malfoys hands, wrapped tight around his own as he attempted to relieve the pressure on this windpipe. Malfoy’s sea-grey eyes were hard and fell and utterly unafraid. He narrowed his gaze as he took in Harry’s red face and obstinate expression.

Finally he must have got tired of waiting for he took one hand and made a quick, pushing motion in the air and Harry was wandlessly thrown backwards, landing in a heap on the ground.

The Atrium was silent, all spectators stock still as they waited for what would happen next.

Harry snarled and threw himself at Malfoy again, but Romilda stood in his path, brandishing a wand. Her look was stern, no nonsense. “I will not hesitate to tie you up, Boss,” she informed him. 

Harry could just see long fair hair and a set of pretentious robes behind her. He halted, feeling his heart pounding, breath coming quick, and glared at them both.

“What the hell’s the matter with you, Potter!” Malfoy snapped, massaging his throat. “It’s not enough that you’re a complete attention seeking nutter, now you go around attacking innocent people as soon as you step out of the floo?! You should be locked up in St. Mungo’s for the good of all Wizardkind!”

But Harry was having none of Malfoy’s snark. He almost started forward towards the other man again, but Romild jabbed him sharply in the ribs with her wand. He settled for glowering at the other man over her head.

“What the hell’s wrong with me, Malfoy? Don’t you pussyfoot around the issue, you Slytherin bastard! There’s been another murder today. Another one! And I just know you have something to do with all this! So don’t you DARE walk around here all smug and pretentious!”

Malfoy folded arms over his chest and glared back. “So there’s been another murder. Who fucking cares. It has nothing to do with me.”

Harry hurled his words at Malfoy as though they were weapons. He wanted to break through that cool, abstract, uncaring expression on the other man’s face. He wanted to finally get Malfoy on the back foot. He wanted him to be as scared and lost as the other had been during Voldemort’s reign. “Don’t fucking play games with me, Malfoy,” he snarled. “You were right there for the first one. You’ve been sneaking around, meeting with strange muggles for God knows how long. Don’t think I haven’t noticed!”

“Spying on me again, are you Potter?” Malfoy crowed.

“You have SOMETHING TO DO WITH THIS. FUCKING TELL me WHAT IT IS!” Harry bellowed.

Malfoy took a step forward until he was right in Harry’s face, Romilda still between them. Harry could count every eyelash. The smug bastard smirked. “Prove it,” he whispered.

And then he was walking away, fashionable black robes swirling around him, long fair hair in imitation of Lucius’. It took all of Harry’s willpower not to tear after the git and pound the truth out of him.

Romilda’s wand, pointed squarely in his face, might have had something to do with it. Slowly Harry brought his breathing rate back down to normal. He became conscious of all the other people, watching, assessing, and judging.

He’d lost control. Visibly. Publicly. 

And Malfoy hadn’t. 

And now Malfoy knew he was onto him.

“Shit,” Harry muttered.

Romilda’s snort told him she agreed wholeheartedly with this assessment.

***

Draco Malfoy stood before his front doors, head bowed so his forehead rested against the ancient oak doors. Just for a moment. He only needed a moment. If he counted to ten in his head, real slow, when he was finished everything would be……….manageable.

Fucking Potter.

The rain – cold, late autumn rain – came down in steady sheets of water behind him. Droplets sluiced off the roof and down the pillars that held up the front porch and drip, drip, dripped on the steps leading from the lawn to the entranceway.

Lots of rain.

Always in the goddamn way. Suspicious bastard!

He was just so goddamned tired.

“Having mental debates with yourself about entering your own home can’t be healthy.”

Draco wanted to jump at the sound of the voice, but he refrained. Barely. He held his breath. Let it out slowly. Knew that she noticed. “Hello Ellie.”

“Surely you didn’t forget the key to your own house,” she teased, but she sounded tired. He turned his head slightly back towards the sound of her voice. She was leaning against a pillar, arms crossed, completely drenched, eyes stark in a snow-white pale face.

“How did you get passed the wards? How did you even see the wards to know where the house was? We’ve got Muggle-repelling charms all over the place.”

“I know,” Ellie said, looking away from him and back out over the rainy lawns. She looked back. “I’d tell you but you wouldn’t understand.” She brightened almost perceptibly. “But your friend, Hermione Granger. I think she would understand.”

“She’s not my friend,” Draco protested, vehemently. Instantly.

Ellie just shrugged. “She should be. Looks smart, that one.”

Draco rolled his eyes, took his hand away from the door and turned to face her. He narrowed his eyes. “Why didn’t you just walk right in? Since clearly the wards were no trouble at all.”

She shrugged again. “Didn’t seem polite.” She must have been tired. Her accent was creeping through the cut-class tones of her voice.

“Oh, that didn’t seem polite,” Draco muttered sarcastically, waving a hand irritably at the door – mind automatically chanting the passwords – so that it opened to admit them both. 

Ellie was shivering violently as she darted past him and into the relative warmth of the Malfoy’s imposing foyer. He waved another hand and dried her off. “Waltzing past other peoples wards, jumping out at them from behind pillars, calling Granger a friend of all things,” he continued, warming up to his theme. “Yes, those are all polite, but not going into the house so you don’t get sick after getting drenched, that’s not polite at all.” 

She followed him into one of the parlors, watched him wave a hand imperiously at the empty fireplace and have a roaring fire fill its brick and iron interior, without comment.

Now she plopped herself down on the rug before the flames, stretching out long legs. “Some of us do have manners, Draco,” she murmured. “We’re not all rude bastards like yourself.”

Draco sniffed, haughtily. “I’ll have you know that my parents were many years married when they conceived me,” he informed her.

“Still doesn’t mean you’re not a bastard,” she informed him cheerfully.

He sighed, gave up for the moment, and plopped himself down dramatically next to her. They were silent for a while. Then Draco, tired and warm, slowly lent against the smaller woman. He felt sleepy. “Why are you here?” he mumbled.

He could feel her roll her eyes. “You’re going to have to be more specific, Draco. Do you mean Here in the Wizarding World? Or Here in this time period? Or Here in this house?”

Draco snorted. “All of the above.” Pause. “Not that I have any illusions about you providing any kind of logical, rational explanation of course. Muggles are not known for their common sense. Your countrymen have even less sense. All that put together means I just don’t know why I bothered asking in the first place.”

“You English have less common sense than we do,” she returned, “and the answers to your questions are, to investigate, because it looks fun, and to see your mother. Of course.”

“See me about what,” came a cool voice from the doorway. Ellie shook off Draco’s head from her shoulder and stood up. He hauled himself up after her.

“Mother, you remember Eleanor, right? From the War.”

Narcissa Malfoy, a vision of golden hair and shimmering, pale blue robes, stood still and silent before them both. Her icy blue eyes swept from her only son to the plain, short, brown-haired Muggle at his side.

Draco wasn’t entirely sure how his mother would react. The last, and only, time she had seen Eleanor Montgomery had been years ago, when her house had been filled with a Madman and his cronies, and she daily had to watch the torture of a people she had always professed to be inferior to herself.

Then again Malfoys always claimed that anyone who was not a Malfoy was an inferior.

Still, Narcissa Malfoy had not left Manor grounds since the Ministry pardon after the War was over. She had seen no other people besides her son, her grandson and her ex-daughter-in-law. Draco held his breath and watched his mother’s face carefully.

Those porcelain features betrayed nothing. Not a muscle twitched, not an eyelid quivered. Draco was impressed, as always, by her control. Not even Ellie, with all her talents, could read anything from his mother’s posture or face. He thought.

But she must have read something he was missing because she took a step forward, towards the older Witch, and held out a hand.

“Mrs. Malfoy, Narcissa. It is a pleasure to see you again. And in such better circumstances than last time.” Her voice was back to cut-glass, precise and elegant and English.

And his mother, his cool, always in control, impassable mother, took a shuddering breath, three steps forward, and grasped Ellie’s hand. Hard. “How is he?” she breathed.

Ellie smiled. “Alive. Healthy. As ornery as ever.”

Draco grinned and then forgot all his tiredness as he heard his mother laugh. Just a quick chuckle, but it was there. It was there and she was smiling.

“And he’s coming back,” Narcissa continued.

“That’s why I’m here. He said to tell you that he expects your hospitality. There’s no way on Salazar’s green earth that I’m moving back into that dump I called a home, when there’s a perfectly good Manor sitting all but vacant. After everything I did for them, I deserve my own goddamn wing,” were, I believe, his exact words.

His beautiful, pureblood, elegant, mother was still holding the hand of the muggle, as though Ellie was imparting her strength to the indomitable Mrs. Malfoy.

“Tell him that he has it,” Narcissa Malfoy said. “He can have the whole house if he wants it. I never did tell you ‘thank you’ did I?” 

“You never exactly got the chance before. And besides I didn’t do it for you.”

“It does not matter. Thank you. So very, very much.”

****

Notes: So what did you think? How is my Draco so far?


	6. Lessons in Espionage

Disclaimer: I own nothing from the world of Harry Potter. Thank you all for your lovely reviews. I appreciate them so very much. Here is the next installment. We’re finally getting a bit of movement into the plot of the story proper. Things will be moving much more quickly, I think, in the next couple of chapters.

Chapter 6 – Lessons in Espionage and Long-Overdue Conversations

 

“Draco Malfoy is definitely up to something,” were the first words Hermione spoke to him that day. He had been waiting for her to storm into his office, accusations about lack of control and subtlety spewing from her as she bore down on him like some sort of avenging harpy.

Instead here she was storming into his office and……..agreeing with him.

Verna’s disapproving face was seen peering around the doorjamb before Hermione slammed the door behind her. She stalk towards Harry’s desk, pounded both fists onto it and leaned forward until she was right in his personal space. Alarmed, Harry leaned backwards.

“Yes?” he hazarded, before his brain caught up with him. “I mean, yes, that’s exactly what I’ve been telling everyone for weeks now. Months even.”

“More like years,” Hermione said, not quite under her breath, “but never mind that now. Yes, yes, you were right. You’re a genius and Draco Malfoy is a nasty, untrustworthy git, blah, blah, blah, that’s not the point.” She darted around his desk, hauled herself on top of it, crossed her legs like she was settling in and leaned forward again.

Harry leaned a little farther back, until he was in danger of toppling backwards. After what had happened on the Livingston Case he had an aversion towards people touching him and invading his personal space. That included Hermione and, unfortunately, his wife.

And don’t think for one second that Ginny hadn’t noticed.

Hermione saw what he was doing and narrowed her eyes. She had always insisted that he attend some sort of therapy. “Someone with your childhood and young adulthood and career definitely needs a psychologist,” she’d told him over and over again. Harry had been fobbing her off for years.

“So, Draco Malfoy?” he said quickly, to distract her.

It worked. 

“Alright,” Hermione said, excitedly. “So I was in that tiny, sunny café’ down in Diagon Alley that I like. You know the one?”

Harry nodded.

She proceeded with her story. When she was done she leaned back a bit and raised an eyebrow at him. 

“So what do you think?” 

“The unholy glee you exhibit at the thought of treason and potential serial killers is indecent, Ms. Granger.” Verna had come into the office and was carrying both a tray of biscuits and a stack of papers. She shoved the tray at Hermione and dumped the papers onto Harry’s already overflowing desk. 

“Make yourselves useful and start eating these,” she told them, pointing to the biscuits Hermione was now holding. “Both of you need fattening up and neither of you have eaten anything since early this morning. That is your usual modus operandi, is it not?” 

She jabbed a finger at Harry. “Mr. Potter, you have a meeting scheduled with the Minister for Magic in 30 minutes. Precisely,” she emphasized. Given Harry’s track record with timekeeping and appointments, this caution on his Secretary’s part was only common sense.

“Then,” she continued, without waiting for Harry’s assent, “you have a meeting with the Minister of Finance. Apparently there are gross irregularities with Auror expenditures this month. After that you have an appearance to put in at the Wizengamot regarding that Amendment to Civil Code No. 48296.” Harry must have looked confused. “You know, the one regarding the use of Veritaserum in questioning suspects. You have your Ms. Granger to thank for that meeting. She’s the one who requested the restrictions on its usage. Her and Madam Professor Andromeda Black of course. She will be there, naturally, voting against you, but as the head of the Potter family, and the Head of the Auror Department, you are required to attend.”

Harry glared at his best friend. She blinked innocently back at him. She had been particularly proud of getting that Civil Code passed. Her and Andromeda both.

“And then you have a meeting with the Head of the Archives and Redundant Paperwork Division tomorrow morning at 8:30.” Harry could have sworn that Verna sounded positively gleeful. As gleeful as she was capable of getting.

“Malfoy? I have a meeting with Malfoy?”

“Yes,” she repeated primly. “The Head of the Archives and Redundant Paperwork Division. Something about incorrect filing.”

Hermione was giggling.

Harry shot her an extremely unamused look.

“Don’t think I haven’t heard about you assaulting him in the Atrium this morning, Harry,” she said, attempting sternness and failing.

“We’ve all heard about that one.” Verna was equally stern, staring at Harry like he was an errant child and not one of, if not the most, powerful wizards in the country. “You’re lack of subtlety is astounding, Mr. Potter,” she informed him, in tones suggesting he work on that. Or else.

And then she left the office without another word.

Hermione was outright laughing now at his expression.

“That was Verna’s voice,” Harry said in wonderment, “but I heard Snape’s words.” Suddenly suspicious he turned to his friend. “She wasn’t in Slytherin, was she?”

“Good God, Harry. How have you worked with the woman for over a decade and still not know what House she went to in Hogwarts? Yes, of course she was a Slytherin. Older than Snape though. Same year as Bellatrix Lestrange and Lucius Malfoy, I think.”

Harry groaned. “I am surrounded by Slytherins,” he declared, theatrically. “Malfoy’s running around being suspicious, my godson’s grandmother, my secretary and my own daughter. All bloody Slytherins!”

“Shhh,” Hermione waved a rapid hand at him, still laughing. “She’ll hear you.”

“Slytherins are a menace to respectable society,” Harry declared with finality.

“Well, they’re definitely better at plotting and spying than you are Harry. We have half an hour to go over tactics, and then after your meeting at the Wizengamot we can get started.”

“Get started with what?” Harry inquired, ever suspicious of that tone of excitement in Hermione’s voice. It usually meant long hours in the library.

She looked surprised that he would even ask that question. “Draco Malfoy’s up to something you said. I agreed with you. We’re spying on him.” She eyed him as though weighing him up for something and finding him wanting. “You can be my student,” she informed him graciously.

“Is that what Unspeakables do?” Harry inquired blandly, trying to look as uninterested as possible.

“Never you mind what we do.” Hermione was still far too quick for him to fool with such a tactic. 

Harry was silent for a moment, and then just decided to go for it. It had been strange for two years now and he was tired of it all. He just wanted things to go back to normal. “Should we ask Ron?” 

At Hermione’s grimace he quickly backtracked. “Okay, still too soon.”

Now she looked mildly guilt-ridden. “If you want to invite him, Harry…..”

“No, no, no, that’s perfectly alright,” Harry interrupted. “Besides, he’s probably still busy patching things up with Pansy.”

Hermione looked like she would argue with him for a moment. She looked away and stared at the wall for a second. “Just make sure that you’re ready for a long evening of stalking. Should be right up your alley,” she said as a parting shot while walking out the door. “You’ve practically made it your life’s mission to stalk Draco Malfoy.”

“I do not stalk Draco Malfoy,” Harry informed his empty office.

Verna’s snort from just outside told him how very wrong she thought he was on this point.

****

“Are we going to Couples Therapy this week?” Harry asked his wife just as soon as he walked through the door. It had been an excruciatingly long day. His proposal had been shot down in the Wizengamot – Andromeda Black had looked inordinately smug – . His meeting with Kingsley, still Minister for Magic after all these many years, had been an unmitigated disaster. He’d had nothing new to report, the Minister had been terse, bordering on ill-tempered, and Harry had been informed that if results were not forthcoming in the next week or so, then war-hero or not, he would be relieved of his office as Head Auror and the post would go to someone else.

“Politics,” Kingsley had said, dark hair now fully grey, face lined and weary. “I have no doubt that if anyone can find the answers it’s you, Harry, but the public want results. Things are starting to turn ugly out there. We’ve had to break up seven riots this week alone. People are scared, and when they get scared they turn violent very quickly.”

And after that Hermione and Harry had spied on Draco Malfoy. Harry’s invisibility cloak may have been involved. Maybe several illegal tracking spells had been used as well.  
If there was one thing that Harry did know about the Unspeakable Department, it was that they loved playing dirty. But all Malfoy had done was gone from work to home and Hermione, despite her best efforts, had found no way to break through the Malfoy Manor wards without alerting their inhabitants.

Harry had left her muttering and aggravated back at the office, and gone back home to try and talk to his wife.

Ginny was banging away in the kitchen at something. Looked like something for work – all glue and papers. There was not a scrap of dinner insight. Her back tensed up when she heard his voice. She stopped what she was doing and spoke without turning around. “What’s the point, Harry?” Her voice was tired, exhausted even. She sounded like Harry   
felt. “What really is the point anymore?”

Harry stilled, suddenly aware that he had come prepared for one conversation and was currently facing uncharted waters.

“What’s the point of what?” he questioned cautiously, testing the shallow end.

Ginny turned to face him then. Her face was blotchy, eyes red, as though she had been crying for hours. Harry placed his keys down on the counter, dropped his overnight bag on the floor, and made to move towards her. She darted backwards out of his reach.

Her red-hair was matted and unkempt, he noticed. She was wearing her oldest, most comfortable clothes; the ones she wore when she was ill.

“Are you alright?” he asked. Quiet. Concerned.

“What’s the point of us,” Ginny continued, ignoring this question and waving a hand at Harry that apparently was supposed to encompass everything. “What’s the point of this sham of a marriage? Seriously, Harry, what is the point? You’re unhappy, I’m miserable, the kids have all left, and everything’s just……a big, fat mess!” She ended on almost a shout.

“Is this about work?” he asked, still unsure what was going on here.

She laughed, bitterly. “No this is not about work. This is about us. You and me,” she clarified, as if he hadn’t gotten that point. “This is about me saying that we’re going to get a divorce.”

“Wizards don’t get divorced,” Harry replied, automatic.

Ginny snorted. Violently. She sounded like an obnoxious foghorn. “Traditional pureblood wizards don’t get divorced. We can get divorced just fine.”

“We don’t know anyone else who has gotten divorced,” Harry argued back. “And no Weasley has ever gotten divorced.”

“Until Ron and Hermione,” Ginny snapped back. “Besides, even your precious Malfoy is divorced.”

“He’s not my anything Malfoy,” Harry said instantly.

“Really?” Ginny’s eyes were shrewd. “Where were you tonight?”

“With Hermione. Research,” Harry replied promptly.

“Research on Draco Malfoy, I bet you all the galleons in your vault. My God,” she groaned, head in her hands now. “It’s like sixth year all over again. I can see the headlines now,   
Rita Skeeter writing the article: HARRY POTTER CAUGHT BREAKING AND ENTERING DRACO MALFOY’S HOME. CLAIMED MALFOY WAS SUSPICIOUS.” She shook her head, red hair swinging, one strand sticking to a tear-matted face. “I can’t deal with this anymore,” she said with finality. “I just can’t.”

Ginny had become an investigative journalist when James had gone away to Hogwarts. She had decided that Professional Quidditch was a young witch’s sport and that she needed something more consistent. Less dangerous.

Harry had been insanely proud of her. Ginny had always had a frankly terrifying tenacity in going after anything she truly wanted. As she now apparently wanted to divorce him.

“You are my Lois Lane,” he said quietly, trying to keep his voice from breaking. This could not be happening. Not now. Everything was just…….all falling apart. “You always were.”

After a moment of complete silence – only the ticking of the clock and their labored breathing keeping them company – Ginny asked in a small voice. “And what if I want to be Superman?”

“You can be,” Harry assured her instantly. Surprised at the question. “You are. You are that too.”

Ginny sighed, tapping her fingers restlessly on the beat-up, plastic tablecloth. “But I’m not. I’m not a partner. Hermione’s a partner. Ron’s a partner. Even Romilda fucking Vane is a partner.” She took a deep breath. Blew it out her nose. “But I’m not a partner,” she continued in more even tones. “I’m the girl you saved in second year. I’m the woman you left behind to go off and defeat the Dark Lord. I’m the princess in the tower; your goal for when you’re finished having adventures. I’m the red-haired woman who will never die for you because you refuse to let me go in harm’s way.”

“You were in harm’s way in the Battle of Hogwarts.” Harry was confused.

“Not by your consent.”

“Look, you don’t have to be my mother. I’ve never seen you as a reflection of my mother.” He shuddered. “That’s just wrong on so many levels.”

“But subconsciously that is how you view me,” Ginny pushed. “I am your red-haired, perfect woman, who will love you unconditionally. But that’s not what real love is.” She was gentle now, mother-like in her patient explanation. “Real love is passionate and uncontrollable. It grows over time and is founded on trust and experience. It’s based on similarities and an attraction to differences. It’s someone you want standing beside you when the going gets tough, not someone you want waiting on the sidelines for when it’s all over.”

She stood up, looking over him in that dingy, worn kitchen, inflexible in her resolve. “I’ve thought about this a lot, Harry, I really have. I love you. I will always love you. And for a while, we got along well. It was comfortable. You were my knight in shining armor. I was a safety net; a member of your adopted family, a reminder of your mother and your childhood. What you’d had of it, at least. I was still here for you. I was still alive. And you knew me, had known me since I was eleven. 

You didn’t have to bare your soul to a stranger and show them the scars. You had sacrificed so much, lived with so much uncertainty and fear, that you did not want to chance getting hurt by opening up to someone you feared could hurt you. Which is what true love would have given you.

She sighed again. “And I……..well I was afraid for much the same reasons. Less broken than you perhaps. Less angry and afraid, but 

“We’re finished, Harry. I can’t live like this anymore.” She rested a hand, feather-light, on his shoulder. Harry flinched away from her. “I am so, so sorry that this came at such a bad time, but I know this has been hard for you too. I know that I am no longer a place of rest, of refuge for you. You need all your energy to save the world, and I’m just holding you back. Again. Like always.”

She sounded heartbroken now, as though she wished for all of it to be different. But still so resolved. Still so strong, like she was utterly sure that this was the right thing to do.   
Harry wondered when was the last time he had felt anything as strongly as that; when he knew, absolutely in his bones, what the right course of action was.

And Harry had no idea where that strength came from, what well she was drawing it from, for he felt tired; just so very, very tired.

“I’m moving back into the Burrow. Tonight, Harry. I’ve already packed. I was just waiting for you. I’ll tell the children tomorrow. They won’t be surprised. I think they’ve suspected something like this was going to happen for a long time.”

At last Harry had something to contribute. “Do I get any say in this at all?” But he already knew the answer.

“It is for the best.” She knelt down, taking both his hands in hers. “Trust me, Harry. Just this once.” And then, “Please.”

Harry thought that he must be truly fucked up, if his letting her leave him for both their sakes was the first time he had ever truly trusted her with his heart, or his soul, or his life.

****

Teddy Lupin, Junior Auror, and partner of Senior Auror Romilda Vane, had always thought that the older woman was beautiful. Unusual and striking and fierce, but also beautiful. 

She reminded him of a younger version of his grandmother; those sharp patrician features and dramatic coloring. 

“Lupin! Get your fucking ass in here now! We’ve got shit to cover!”

……..If his grandmother was a dirty-mouthed, battle-scarred, Auror that was. 

As Teddy made his way to what the Aurors in the department called the LW Conference room (“Long-Winded.” Seriously you would not believe the amount of time some bureaucrats spent on unnecessary briefings.), he reflected on whether his mother would have been anything like Romilda.

Somehow, from the pictures and his grandmother’s stories, Nymphadora Tonks had seemed much bubblier. Then again, she had died will still relatively young. A lifetime doing what was essentially comparable to muggle police work would have hardened a far cheerier personality than Agent Vane’s.

Still he wondered if she would have been proud of him. 

His mother, that was. Romilda told him a hundred times a day that he was an incompetent fool.

“Lupin, if you walked any slower I will have solved the case and fired your ass already.”

Teddy grinned. “That’s what I was counting on. Then I could get a real job, one with actual pay and reasonable hours. And, oh goodness, have you heard of this concept? It’s called a social life.”

Romilda rolled her eyes and thrust a folder filled with paperwork at him. Then she dropped a heavy book into his arms on top of the paperwork. “Page three-hundred and ninety-seven. As if you even have a social life,” she said. “Being an Auror means that you eat, sleep and breathe these cases.”

Teddy had to agree with her. He hadn’t even seen his girlfriend – Dominique Weasley – all week.

“Don’t go getting all moony on me, lover-boy.” Romilda wasn’t even looking at him. She riffled through some papers and started pinning them up to the huge cork board that covered one wall of the LW Conference Room. 

“Haha,” Teddy said, mustering as much sarcasm as he was able to. “Moony. How very witty, Romilda. Grandmother should have never told you any of the stories about my father. She should never tell you stories period. You just use them as blackmail material.” 

Romilda looked up at him. One quick glance. He wasn’t upset. She saw that.

He liked all the references to his father. He liked Romilda’s jokes and Grandmother’s stories and Uncle Harry’s tales of Professor Lupin, his favorite Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. He liked the tales the retired Aurors told of his mother when they had their Annual Auror Afternoons.

It made him feel like his parents were not forgotten, like they still lived on in a strange way. What was it his grandmother said? They are not gone while their names are spoken.

Romilda stuck a thumb tack aggressively into the cork board. “Are you even paying attention to me?” she snapped.

“Of course.” Teddy smiled his most ingratiating smile. “I always pay attention to you. You said that if you had to attend one more fucking meeting about the Strickland Case you were going to go out there and start committing murders yourself.”

“Look at this shit.” Romilda waved at the papers littering the walls of the Conference room. Pictures of the missing, sketches of the dead, reports and diagrams and charts. “And what progress have we made?” she growled. “Nothing.”

Teddy moved up to stand next to his partner. He folded his arms in unconscious imitation of her as he studied the board, the papers and the red tape. “Nothing,” he agreed. “Still, maybe Harry will have new information for us today.”

“Auror Potter,” Romilda said, severely.

“Yup,” Teddy agreed, irrepressible. “Auror Potter.”

Romilda decided to ignore him. “We’re in charge of the briefing. We have to be authoritative, informative and most of all, brief. Which means that you will leave the talking to me.”

Teddy started laughing as the first Aurors started filtering into the room. “You can’t use that line!”

“I,” intoned Romilda, “can use whatever line I want.” Then she stood at the room and attempted to glare the chattering incomers into submission. 

Teddy smiled and waved. Romilda kicked him in the shin.

At last Harry Potter walked into the room, visibly tired with circles under his eyes and hair in even worse disarray than usual.

“Sit rep,” he demanded, as soon as he entered. The loudly conversing Aurors fell silent at once.

“Any of the Unspeakables gonna show, Boss?” Romilda asked. She was probably the only person who would have dared to ask a question of the Head Auror at the moment.

Harry gave a brief shake of his head. Romilda snorted in derision. “Figures,” she muttered, and then launched into a LW Conference meeting.

“Alright everyone listen up. We’re going over old news, so deal with it. Some figures for you: We’ve got 87 people missing that appear to have similar MOs. We’ve got 32 people dead with similar MOs. This latest kill, one Griselda Marchbanks, would appear to fit the profile except for some slight deviations, which are…….”

After Romilda was finished, Harry asked any of the Aurors if they had anything of note to add. Had they made any new breakthroughs? Had any of their cases yielded up something that looked like a pattern?”

“Mostly old people,” was what he got from one Auror pair.

Auror Thompson claimed to have gotten only women. This lead to some good-natured ribbing and claims of favoritism on the part of the establishment. 

No one had anything else.

“The Unspeakables do not have any leads,” he added at the end. They didn’t, to the best of his knowledge. Unless Hermione wasn’t telling him something. He dismissed that thought as soon as it entered his head. If there was one person he was absolutely certain was loyal to him to the end of time, it was Hermione Granger.

Even Ron, his best mate, his partner-in-crime, did not have the level of trust that Hermione did. And why not? His subconscious whispered, but he dismissed it for the moment. 

There were bigger things to worry about.

In fact, one of those bigger problems was waiting for him just outside the conference room. He waved the rest of the lingering Aurors away and invited them in; two young men barely out of their training it looked like.

“Sir,” one of them said, almost but not-quite saluting Harry. “We have a problem.” 

****

Romilda Vane and Teddy Lupin had finally been relieved of duty. Everyone was pulling double-shifts at the moment – which looked to go up to triple-shifts any day now – and so any chance to get out of their regulation Auror robes and take a shower was a welcome blessing.

They had been walking together in silence through the Ministry for some time, steps matching, eyes scanning for trouble just in case, but the silence couldn’t last forever. 

Especially not with Teddy around, Romilda had found from long experience.

“Have you ever minded growing up and knowing that you were adopted?” Teddy asked her, all but skipping alongside as they exited the Ministry.

Romilda gave him a stern look to quell an enthusiasm he should have long since outgrown. As usual it had absolutely no affect. She walked a couple of steps without speaking. She had long expected to have this conversation with him. Ever since, in fact, she had requested him as her trainee, last year. That it had taken such a long time in question meant that 

it was very important to Teddy.

“No,” she said quietly, “I never minded.”

“You never wanted to know who your parents were?” He asked then, curious as a bird, darting glances at her from the corner of his eyes.

“I knew who my parents were. They were the ones who had been there for me when I cried, and when I came home from school with my first O, and who had cheered when I was selected for Gryffindor even though they were both Ravenclaws and were hoping I’d be a bit more academically inclined. They were the people who died making sure I lived during the War.”

Teddy didn’t say anything, but he knew her well enough to know that that was not the end of the story.

People always said that Romilda had layers. She really hated it when people were right.

She sighed a bit then, in aggravation. “I never cared to know until I started seeing people, older people, giving me strange looks, as though they recognized me somehow.” She shot another look at Teddy. He was staring straight ahead but his brow was furrowed under that ridiculous turquoise hair he always wore.

“Your Uncle Harry does the same thing to me sometimes. He hasn’t figured it out yet, but he will soon enough. I can’t keep it under wraps forever.”

“But you wanted to.” It wasn’t a question. There were many people who doubted Teddy Lupin’s qualifications as an Auror. They said that he had gotten into the Academy. They claimed that he had been accepted due to two names, Nymphadora Tonks and Harry Potter. Romilda did not know if this was true or not, but it did not matter to her. For it was moments like these that reminded her just how well he was cut out for this line of work.

Teddy Lupin might be young and silly and a gentle soul like his father, but he was damn insightful when it came to people. And figuring out people’s motives, their deepest held secrets and fears, well…….that was a great deal of what being an Auror was about. And it was why Teddy worked as her partner. She had all the grit and the skill. He had all the charm.

“Wouldn’t you?” she asked simply, “With a mother such as mine?” And Teddy understood perfectly.

They had reached the house now. Teddy took out his key but the door was opened before he needed it. The woman who stood there was striking; tall and elegant and imperious. 

She had the same nose as Romilda, the same nose as both of her sisters.”

“Hello Aunt Andromeda,” Romilda Vane said. “I know it’s been a couple of months, but we need to talk.”

****

Notes: What do you think? Are you liking Romilda? Ginny was the one who surprised me, in a good way, while writing this chapter.


	7. Explosions, Children and Paperwork

Disclaimer: I own nothing from Harry Potter. Introducing Luna, and the Potter-Weasley children. And the plot thickens.

Chapter Seven – Explosions, Children and Paperwork

 

Aurors Higglesworth and Smith attempted to explain what the problem was to Harry as they Apparated back to Griselda Marchbanks former home, but they obviously made a complete botch of it for Harry was as confused as ever by the time he went charging through the front door………

……….only to find that the front door was just about the only part of the edifice that looked to be somewhat whole.

Someone had detonated some kind of explosive device inside, and all that remained of the once proud, stately house was a ruined, blackened shell.

The living room, or what Harry inferred to be the living based on its past location, was scorched black, filled with detritus and…….body parts. Harry looked quickly at the two Aurors who had accompanied him.

Higglesworth looked pale as a ghost and Smith had turned and was running for the door. Harry heard the sounds of retching coming from the front garden. “What happened?” he asked, quietly but firmly.

Auror Higglesworth brought his gaze back to his boss with what looked like supreme effort of will.

“Smith and I were to be on duty from eight to midnight.” The young man swallowed and then gamely shouldered on. “We got here five minutes to and found……..” he waved expressively towards the body parts – bits of bone and skin and blood. Here and there a finger was visible.

 

“Who was on duty before you?”

“Aurors Jones and Thompson.”

There was a pause then, for a moment. Then, “Someone will have to notify their next of kin.”

“I’ve sent Auror Smith to do just that.” It was a female voice, usually soft and dreamy although now she sounded firm but filled with sadness.

“Hello Luna,” Harry greeted her quietly, without turning around. “Get some fresh air,” Harry told Auror Higglesworth. You’re on guard duty. You make sure this perimeter is absolutely secure. Call up Stoneworth and Turner from the Office. No one comes in and no one goes out of this property that I don’t know about and expressly allow.”  
Auror Higglesworth departed with all speed.

Luna came and stood beside Harry as they took in the scene of carnage before them. Eventually she took his hand. Harry hadn’t realized until then that his face was awash with tears. He was crying, silently, steadily.

“I heard about you and Ginny,” Luna said, softly, compassionately. 

Harry snorted. “Bad news travels fast,” he opined, bitterly, staring holes into the remains of two good Aurors and a rather remarkable old woman who had all been murdered on his watch, his watch goddammit. 

“I’m sorry,” Luna said, “I know this is a bad time to bring it up. I know it just happened, but it did just happen and, well, it can’t help with you standing at yet another crime scene. 

It’s just all piling up, isn’t it?”

Harry squeezed her hand tighter, so tight that he thought she might protest, but she didn’t, and he didn’t respond otherwise.

Luna didn’t turn to look at him. If she had Harry thought he might forget all manly dignity and start bawling. Instead she looked out into the distance of the room and spoke dreamily, as though she were addressing someone not even present with her. 

“It’s going to be alright, Harry. We’re here for you. We are all here for you.”

There was another slight pause. “And we’re going to get this bastard,” Luna said, fiercely, and so unlike her normal self that Harry looked down at her, really looked at her for the first time since she had entered this ruined house.

It was dark in here except for the glow of their wands. But even by its light, Luna’s face was lined with exhaustion and despair. Her pale hair was unkempt and her robes, Unspeakable robes, were wrinkled and dingy.

Harry knew that she was part of some kind of Major Crimes unit – to use the Muggle Terminology – with the Department of Mysteries, for she was usually the first at the scene of the crime when unusual murders were reported. Of course she was usually accompanied by her partner, a senior Unspeakable with an impenetrable Scottish brogue who everyone just called Hamish, as if he didn’t even own a last name.

That was all Harry needed tonight was for Hamish to show……….

“Evenin’ laddie,” came a strident, male voice from outside the door. “You gonna let me pass or am I gonna go o’ your arse.”  
………up.

Harry refrained from groaning. Just. Quickly he wiped his eyes and called for Higglesworth to let Unspeakable Hamish enter. A wall of red hair and bulging muscles appeared on 

Harry’s side, opposite Luna. He quickly attempted to drop her hand, but Luna refused to let go.

Harry could hear Hamish scratching the stubble on his chin as he took in the scene. “Bit messy,” was the extent of his opinion, and it was all Harry could do to keep from strangling him then and there. On the spot of several other recently committed murders. Bit poetic really. Luna exponentially increased the pressure on his hand.

“Bit more light might be in order,” continued the other man, oblivious of this interplay. And with that Hamish murmured a brief spell and the remains of the room were lit up with balls of glowing yellowish light.

Luna had left Harry’s side and was wandering slowing around the wreckage. Hamish bent down and gingerly poked at a body part with the tip of his wand.

“Stop it,” Harry snapped at him. “That’s disrespectful.”

Hamish slowly straightened. Harry glared up at him, daring, just daring the other man to say something, to try anything, just one thing, with him tonight. The Unspeakable’s grey eyes narrowed as he studied the Head Auror.

“Bit strange, innit it?” the large man asked Harry, slowly and patiently, as though dealing with a dim-witted child.

“What? That they’ve chosen to blow this one up when they haven’t bothered with any of the other murder or disappearance scenes?”

“That he’s chosen to do this,” Hamish disagreed.

“It’s highly unlikely that this is a one-man operation.”

“The Department of Mysteries respectfully disagrees, laddie.”

“Well the Department of Mysteries can go kiss my –“

“OR!” Luna spoke up, loudly. They both stopped arguing and turned to look at her. She was frowning irritably at a wisp of hair that kept getting into her eyes. Finally she just blew at it really loudly. The hair settled back in its original location.

She looked utterly ridiculous.

“Or what?” Harry asked, long used to her abstractions and eccentricities.

“You’re both thinking that he, or they,” she added hurriedly upon seeing Harry’s expression, “blew this up to cover up what it was that they wanted to take from her.”

“Makes sense, lass.” Hamish shrugged.

Luna tilted her head and fixed wide, spacy eyes on her partner. “What if they weren’t trying to hide what they took, but rather what they left behind?”

Which made absolutely no sense at all. They both stared at her.

Luna shrugged.  
ii  
***  
ii

Harry’s alarm clock, a malevolent looking witch with a tiny broomstick – which she hit him with when he failed to get out of bed, repeatedly – gifted to him by Albus Severus, rang long before he was ready to get up the next morning.

Or rather later that morning. He’d only left the Marchbanks’ house when the sun was already on the horizon.

He groaned and rolled over in his bed.

Realized that his wife was not next to him. For the second day in a row.

She wouldn’t be next to him ever again.

The alarm-clock witch wacked him in the head with her tiny broom.

“Arggghhh!” Harry yelled. He jumped up, grabbed that pretentious old woman of a witch, and hurled her across the room into the nearest wall.

Not even a dent. Of course she had been charmed to be impervious.

Seething, Harry stalked downstairs to grab something to eat. And to make coffee. Today was the day that he was due at Hogwarts to talk with James, Albus Severus and Lily about his and Ginny’s upcoming divorce. And then he had a meeting with the Head of the Department of Archives and Redundant Paperwork. AKA Draco Malfoy. AKA the absolute bane of his existence and pain in his ass.

Harry sighed, volubly. He was going to need all the strong drinks he could imbibe.

Ginny was supposed to meet him there.

As he made coffee he wondered uneasily what Ginny was doing at the Burrow. He had had no contact with anyone from the Weasley family, except Ron, since Ginny had left two nights ago.

Ron had flowed Harry’s office the next day. But all he had said was that the next time Harry had a spare moment, they should go have a drink.

Harry took that to mean that Ron wasn’t angry with him for breaking his little sister’s heart, but he was unsure as to the reactions of the rest of the Weasleys. They were red-haired and fiercely loyal to their own.

And as Hermione had found out when she had been left by Ron, if you were no longer married to a Weasley, you were accorded no such loyalty. Harry had no desire to be on the end of a Mrs. Weasley rampage on top of everything else.

Feeling queasy, he skipped breakfast altogether and just downed two cups of the strongest coffee he could brew. Then he Appareted to the gates of Hogwarts, where Professor McGonagall was already waiting for him.  
ii  
***  
ii

James Potter had condescended enough to join the rest of his siblings at the Ravenclaw table this morning. After all, momentous events were about to take place; their father was coming to the school to speak with them.

He plopped down with all the drama inherent in a fifteen year old boy who has yet to have breakfast, and pulled the nearest plate of rashers towards him.

“Good Morning to you too,” came Rose’s caustic voice from behind an absolutely humungous tome she had apparently decided to tackle at this ungodly hour. James glared at the book in lieu of her face. The words Hammersmith’s Compendium of Advanced Arithmancy gazed placidly back at him,

At her words his brother Al, who was sat next to her, bent over a piece of parchment and scribbling madly, glanced up. “Oh, hello James. Didn’t expect to see you this early in the morning.”

“It’s 8:35. We have ten minutes before we have to leave for class.” Rose turned a page of her book with a resounding snap. “As usual, James leaves thing to the last minute. Even food.”

“What is your problem,” James demanded.

“If you’re not going to behave in a mature fashion about all of this, James Potter, then I suggest you take your sorry self and remove back to the Gryffindor table.”

“Behave in a mature fashion about what?” Hugo had wandered over to the Ravenclaw table to see what his sister and cousins were up to.

Lily’s quiet voice came from behind James, causing him to jump and scowl at her. “Dad’s coming up to the school today.” She slid carefully into the space besides games. She had obviously been waiting for him to enter the Great Hall before she came over.

James inched away from her. “Don’t want Slytherin cooties.” He smirked unkindly, missing the hurt on Lily’s face but not missing the way Rose kicked him under the table. She didn’t even have to look up from her book.

“Hello, Lily,” she said, kindly.

“ ‘Lo,” Lily mumbled. And then, “What are you doing, Al?”

“What’s it look like,” James said, around a mouthful of bacon and eggs. He was shoveling it in for the food was about to disappear any second. “He’s writing.”

Hugo craned his neck over Rose’s head to look at what his cousin was doing. “Looks like symbols,” he informed James. The younger Weasley adored his older cousin, much to 

Rose’s disgust, and was forever trying to win his way into James’ good graces.

James was fickle in his affections, some days he acknowledged his little cousin, and some days he did not.

“I got Preston’s Potion Principia in the post the other day, and I’ve been working my way through some of the easier formulas,” Al muttered absently, not really paying them any attention.

“Sounds fascinating,” Lily approved.

“Sounds dull,” James disagreed, still with his mouth full. 

“James,” Rose snapped, spectacles peering over the top of her book, “How many times do I have to tell you……”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” James finished for her, rolling his eyes. “What are you, my mother?” he groused.

“Feels like it,” Rose muttered. And then, “How are you today, Lils?”

Lily was attempting to eat porridge. Attempting was the correct word for during her first bit she’d dropped half of it on her lap and was now discreetly wiping it off and hoping that no one noticed.

Rose didn’t even look up, just evanesced the mess and cleaned the stain. James started laughing at her.

Lily felt her face turning red; she really hated attention being drawn to her. “Fine,” she said, hoping to disappear into the floor.

“Honestly,” Rose sighed, finally giving up and snapping her book closed, before all but slamming it down on the table. Professor McGonagall gave the group a strange look from her position at the Head Table. She fixed a stern look upon her cousins; all three of them. “You father is coming today to talk to you about him and your mother getting a divorce, and the three of you can’t act like normal people for five minutes?”

“Don’t know why he’s bothering,” James grumbled. He stabbed his fork down for one last bite only to discover that the food had vanished. “Mum came yesterday and explained everything.”

“Yes, which is weird if you think about it,” Rose continued, implacable.

James rolled his eyes. “The only thing weird about this whole thing is how much you keep harping on about it.

“It is a bit weird, if you think about it,” Lily put in hesitantly, not sure if she should speak up. 

“When’s Uncle Harry going to get here?” Hugo asked.

“What do you get when you cross asphodel and wormwood?” was Al’s contribution to the conversation.

“Why didn’t Aunt Ginny wait for Uncle Harry to come with her?” Rose pressed.

Lily looked down hurriedly. She missed the sudden, shrewd look her cousin gave her.

There was a sudden scraping of benches and increase in noise as Breakfast officially came to an end and the students began to make their way to class. Professor McGonagall was beckoning to the Potter children from the Head Table.

Rose shoved her humungous tome in her back and dragged Hugo behind her away from the table. 

“Say hi to Uncle Harry from us!” Hugo shouted after them.

Professor McGonagall, still stern and no nonsense in spite of her advanced years bade them to wait in her office while she went and fetched their father. “The password is “Transmorgrification,” she informed them. They were not surprised.

James, Al and Lily took seats before McGonagall’s desk. Al scribbled on his paper, not paying his siblings any attention. James took out some overdue home from his school back and hastily began adding lines. Lily got up from her chair and wandered over to the wall covered in the portraits of long-dead Headmasters.

Phineas Nigellus, former Head of her own House, gave her a speculative look and a small smile. Dumbledore winked at her. And Severus Snape……well Severus Snape was still and silent.

“He hasn’t woken up yet,” said a voice behind her, sadly, and Lily turned to find Headmistress McGonagall standing with her father, who was also watching Severus Snape’s portrait with a strange expression upon his face.

“Dad!” Al yelled happily.

“Albus Severus,” their dad returned, gravely, and Al grimaced at the hated name. James looked up and gave his father a curt nod and that was all. Lily went over and gently hugged her father. Awkwardly he returned it.

“I’ll leave you four alone,” McGonagall said, before shooting Dumbledore a stern look and backing out of the room.

Lily reached out and took her father’s hand, happy when he let her, as they walked back to the seats before the Headmistress’s desk. Harry never seemed to know what to do with his children and today seemed no exception.

He cleared his throat a few times. “I was expecting your mother to be here already, to be honest,” he said at last.

“Mum came and told us you’re getting a divorce yesterday.” James’ voice was brusque and rude, but their Dad didn’t notice.

“What?” he asked, slightly stunned.

“She was here yesterday, Dad,” Al explained more patiently. “She said that you were too busy to come yesterday, but that she didn’t think this conversation could wait. She wanted us to know before the Press found out.” James shot their father a disgusted look.

Harry still looked stunned. “But I………what? Why?”

After a minute he shook his head and saw all three of his children – two pairs of brown eyes and one pair of green – watching him warily.

“And you’re okay with this?” he asked. “With the divorce? You know that it doesn’t mean either of us love you……”

“Yes, yes, Dad we know,” James interrupted. “This has been a lovely chat and all, but I need to get to class. Girls to seduce, homework to not hand in. And as much as I love our chats, Father, it’s just that………well, I really don’t love them. So any time this one is over will be great.”

There was a snort from the wall.

Lily shot a stern look at Phineas Nigulles. Her dad did not need his snarky commentary at the moment. He looked lost and sad enough as it was.

James picked up his back and stormed out from the room. Al carefully picked up his bag and made to follow. He came towards their dad, but didn’t reach out to touch him. “I’ve got to go too, Dad,” he explained. “Big Potions test this period.” He turned to leave, turned back again. “Thanks for coming.”

And then he was gone as well.

Lily was still holding her dad’s hand. She tugged it a bit now to get him to face her. She eyed the portraits out of the corner of her vision to see if any of them were paying her any attention. Only Dumbledore and Phineas Nigulles were, and she trusted both of them.

“Dad?”

“Yes, LIls?” Her dad sounded tired.

“Mum came yesterday and explained about you and her,” Lily muttered quickly, hoping to get the words out before she ran out of courage, or her dad ran out of interest. “But then she sent the Al and James off because she needed to talk to me alone.”

“About what?”

Lily had her father’s full attention. It was something that happened quite rarely, and the steady, piercing green gaze of Harry Potter was a hard thing to bear. Lily dropped his hand, clenched her fingers together and stared hard at the floor beneath her feet. 

She wasn’t good with talking to people, never had been, and she was afraid she was making a mess of the whole thing. But it had been strange, that conversation with her mother, and she couldn’t put her finger on it. But her gut was telling her that her dad needed to know this.

“She just told me that she was no longer a Potter, that she was a Weasley again and that I had to help you and hold up the Potter name.”

“Yes?” her dad prompted.

Lily scuffed her foot and refused to look up. “It’s just…….something about it………well, Mum said it was formal. That Grandmum had taught her to say that to her daughter if she should ever have one and should die or get divorced…….and……..well…….”

She darted a glance up at her father’s face. He didn’t look angry, just mildly confused as to why she was telling him this. She took a deep breath.

“Well……Scorpius was saying that……”

Her dad cut her off. “Wait, what? Scorpius Malfoy?”

“Scorpius Greengrass, Dad. He doesn’t like going by his father’s name.” Lily might be quiet, but there was no way that she was letting anyone, even her own father, talk bad about her best friend. Her only friend.

Harry looked to be physically restraining himself from cursing and was grinding his teeth. Lily spoke rapidly, trying to get all the words out at once. “Well, he just saidsomethingaboutlinesofmaternaldescent. Bye Dad!” She pecked his cheek and all but fled from the room.

When she reached the bottom of the winding staircase, she leant against the window for a moment and took a deep breath. She loved her Dad, truly she did, but he was a remote figure at best. Lily wasn’t comfortable with people, and people that intimidated her all but caused her to be paralyzed with fright. But she had had to tell him that.

When Scorpius had told her what his Dad had been researching lately – the lines of maternal descent in the Black family – and then when her mother had had that strange, archaic, formulaic conversation with her, well bells had gone off in Lily’s head. 

Coincidences were rarely just coincidences. Besides, lately Phineas Nigellus had been giving her strange looks. Something suspicious was happening.  
ii  
***  
ii

Lines of Maternal Descent, Harry wondered hazily. What on earth does that mean? And what the hell was Ginny doing telling the children without him?

Something beeped at him. 

Harry looked down at his watch and realized that he was late for a meeting with the Head of Archives and Redundant Paperwork. Everywhere he went these days, he was inundated with Malfoys. Even his own children were not safe. Even if those Malfoys were calling themselves Greengrasses.

Semantics.

Harry Apparated straight into the Ministry Foyer, took the Lift down as far as it would go, and stalk down the narrow, poorly-lit, dingy hallway until he came to a plain wooden door that simply read Archives. 

He knocked.

After a second the words “Come In” were issued in a terse tone. He heaved the door open, dislodging several man-sized stacks of paperwork in the process, and ran into the baleful gaze of Draco Malfoy.

He sneered. “Not going to attempt to assault me today, are you Potter?”

Draco Malfoy had sneering down to an art form. He’d had lots of practice after all. Harry refrained from telling him that if his face froze like that he’d look constipated for the rest of his life.

“Give it time, Malfoy,” he returned, “Give it time.”

Malfoy narrowed his eyes as though contemplating the best way to kill Harry and hide the body.

Harry grinned, moved right up to Malfoy’s desk, shoved paperwork off of a chair, and perched himself on it. Malfoy’s scowl deepened. Then he smirked. Maliciously.

“Heard about your divorce, Potter. All over the Daily Prophet it was. Lurid pictures, speculation of homosexuality and everything. Couldn’t keep the Weaselette happy, Potter? Was that it?”

“Malfoy, you say one more word about Ginny and I will have you sent to Azkaban on trumped up charges that it will take the Wizengamot fifteen years to get enough evidence to declare your innocence.”

“Touchy about that subject are we?” Malfoy cackled. “How long have you known you were gay?”

“I’m not gay,” Harry snarled. “You’re gay.”

“And you have the arguing skills of a five year old girl!” he crowed.

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose and tried, really honestly, tried not to strangle Malfoy right then and there. Besides, if he killed the git then he’d never discover his evil plan. “So, why am I here Malfoy?” 

“You should have been here fifteen minutes ago, although I can’t say that I’m surprised you haven’t learned how to tell time after all these years.”

“Shut up, Malfoy,” Harry snapped. He was in no mood for word games or Mafloy’s moods. “You called this meeting so damn well tell me why I’m here.”

“We have numbers to fill out, Potter, and paperwork. Surely you know what that is by now. Your office,” and here he jabbed a finger in Harry’s direction, “has been incorrectly filing reports for months. Who do you think has to deal with all the inconsistencies? Who has to deal with the backlog? Who has to deal with snotty little bureaucrats from the Treasury Department demanding updated forms?! Me! That’s who! So don’t sit there all smug and ask why you’re here! You know why you’re here!”

Malfoy was breathing hard by the end of this, all but in Harry’s face and he spat accusations.

“Oh my god, Malfoy,” Harry said, after a moment of stunned silence, “keep your shirt on. We’ll go over your bloody paperwork!”

Malfoy groaned. “Maybe I should just kill you. That would be one way to get rid of all this paperwork.”

Harry glared at him. “I can’t tell if you’re being a prat or are just an overly neurotic drama queen, but be quiet and let’s get this sorted out. The sooner I can get away from your company the happier I’ll be.”

Malfoy snorted. “You’re no bed of roses yourself, Potter.

But settle down to the paperwork they did.  
ii  
ii

 

Romilda followed Teddy and Aunt Andromeda into the house. 

It was a different one from the old Tonks residence Aunt Andromeda had had before the War. Afterwards she had relocated to a larger establishment, one farther away from other Wizarding homes and villages, and one which was much better warded.

It was rich and dark and spacious inside, with the type of furniture that spoke of good taste and frugal economy. Aunt Andromeda was a famous professor at the Ingolstadt Institute in Germany, but that just meant that her papers were published, not that she was rolling in galleons.

Her trust from the Black Family had long since run out.

“We’re still waiting for your cousin,” Aunt Andromeda said as she led the way into the living room where tea and biscuits were waiting for them.

Romilda took a seat on a settee and decisively bit into a large, pink-frosted biscuit. “When was the last time you saw Draco Malfoy?” she asked.

Aunt Andromeda looked thoughtful. She was still beautiful, Andromeda Black Tonks, even though she was well into her 60s; beautiful and regal and stern. Tall, fine-boned with the distinctive nose of the Blacks, grey-eyed with long black hair now streaked with silver, she was every inch the patrician daughter of a once noble house.

She looked startlingly like her sister Bellatrix, and not at all like her sister Narcissa.

Teddy was fidgeting with his cup of Tea.

Aunt Andromeda glanced at him in admonishment before turning back to Romilda. “It must have been after the War; at his trial.”

“Will he come, do you think?” Teddy asked. He’d always been vastly curious about his cousin. When he’d been a little boy, Draco Malfoy had apparently sent Teddy birthday and Christmas presents, although those had tapered off by the time the boy was seventeen and leaving Hogwarts.

“I did stress its urgency,” Aunt Andromeda said, placidly. She turned back to Romilda, inquired about the progress they had made on the Strickland Case.

And Romilda told her. Everything. 

****

 

Harry didn’t know how long he and Malfoy sat there arguing about paperwork, but it must have been awhile for when Hermione burst into Malfoy’s office, the chronometer read 2100.

“Harry, oh my god, I’ve been looking for you everywhere!” Her eyes were red, hair on end.

Malfoy narrowed his eyes at her too and his lip curled, but he didn’t say anything.

Harry slowly turned to face her. He did not like the look in her eyes at all; something bad, something very bad had happened. “What is it, Hermione?” he asked, trying to remain calm but feeling every nerve in his body standing on edge.

“Oh Harry, I am so sorry,” Hermione whispered. She took a deep breath. “Lily’s been Disappeared.”

****

Notes: How’s it coming?


	8. Lines of Maternal Descent

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of Harry Potter. Unfortunately. I would love to change the epilogue. Anyway, on with the story. The plot thickens. Not sure how this chapter turned out. Might want to make the Molly and Ginny part longer/more detailed. Tell me what you think.

Chapter Eight – Lines of Maternal Descent

For a second, for one complete pounding of his heartbeat, Harry was absolutely still; frozen into immobility.

Then, “What?” in extremely annoyed tones came from the Malfoy to his left. “What the hell does that mean, Granger?” the blond man snapped.

Hermione had come closer to both of them, concerned eyes fixed on her best friend. She was so involved with watching Harry’s reaction that she forgot to modulate her tone for ‘speaking to Malfoy.’ It was her abstracted, lost-in-research tone that answered him. “It’s what the Unspeakables call the people who have been taken. Some have been murdered, but most……..well, most of them seem to vanish into thin air, pulled somehow into somewhere…….else. Right in front of their friends and family, or whoever they happen to be standing beside at that exact moment in time.” 

She reached out now and laid a hand, hesitantly, on Harry’s arm.

He shook her off, roughly, rose without speaking, and began pacing. Back and forth. Furious.

Malfoy shot Harry and indecipherable look before turning back to Hermione. “So the littlest Potter was taken?” he confirmed. Hermione nodded, still without looking at him. “The girl. The one in Slytherin.”

Hermione nodded again.

“Anyone else taken?”

Shake of her head. 

If she had been paying more attention she would have noticed the well-hidden concern in Malfoy’s words; the fear for the safety of his own child, however estranged that child might be.

“Any ideas of where she is!” Harry demanded then. His face was frantic, his brilliant green eyes alight with manic energy.

Hermione winced. She hated seeing this look in him. It meant he rarely listened to reason; or anything she had to say. She shook her head again. She seemed to be doing that a lot lately. There was a lot she did not know, and it was really starting to piss her off.

“Does it have something to do with the fact that I’m Harry Potter?” he demanded.

“Probably. I don’t know for sure.”

“Does it have something to do with the fact that they BLEW UP the house of their last murder victim!”

“WHAT?” shouted Malfoy, but nobody paid him any attention.

“I don’t know!” Hermione yelled back. “Maybe they’re trying to distract us by taking Lily, but I DON’T KNOW!”

Harry crossed to her in two strides. Grabbing her by the shoulders he all but picked her up and proceeded to shake her. “You don’t know?! You don’t know! You don’t have a single, fucking idea where these……….murderers, these fucking BASTARDS having taken my fucking daughter!” His voice was rising exponentially with every word he spoke until he was roaring at her. “YOUR ENTIRE FUCKING DEPARTMENT CAN’T COME UP WITH ONE SOLID FUCKING LEAD ON WHO OR WHERE THESE PEOPLE ARE! WHAT THE FUCK GOOD ARE YOU!”

Hermione’s neck hurt, but she didn’t stop him. It was a question she had asked herself frequently over sleepless months, before they – or he/she – had taken her niece.

“Potter!” snapped a voice. “Why don’t you get a fucking grip and let go of Granger before you break the Mudblood.”

Malfoy was standing next to her, not attempting to physically intervene, but giving Harry his narrowed eyed glare of judging someone and find them incredibly stupid.

“WHAT DID YOU CALL HER!” He released her, Hermione stumbled back, and Malfoy stepped right into her spot, face an inch from Harry’s.

“Oh I think you heard me just find, Potter.” Malfoy smirked. “I told you to get a fucking grip. You’re acting like the ill-bred sot that you are.”

Harry punched him right in the nose. Malfoy stumbled back, snarling in rage, and then tackled Harry. Head over heels they went, fists out, yelling, as they attempted to pummel each other into bloody pulps.

Hermione let this go on for a bit, until Malfoy had his fingers around Harry’s throat and looked to be strangling him with every sign of enjoyment. Then she walked over and slammed both of their heads together. Unspeakables knew how to fight dirty.

They both cursed her, volubly, and fell back, away from each other, onto the floor, nursing their war wounds.

“I think I’m dying,” Malfoy declared, dramatically, holding his head while blood poured from his nose.

“Stop being a baby, Malfoy,” Harry said, voice almost calm again. Hermione decided that this might take a while and took a seat at Malfoy’s desk.

“Stop acting like a Muggle, Potter. We’re Wizards. Learn to fight like one.”

“At least I never ran away from a fight. Unlike certain other cowards who happen to be sitting in this room.”

“At least I didn’t defeat a Dark Lord with a First Year spell.”

“At least I defeated a Dark Lord and was on the winning side, unlike certain other losers I could name.”

“At least I still have a mother.”

“At least my mother was a hero.”

“So was mine.”

“She lied to save your life. Mine threw herself between me and a death curse!”

“Yeah,” Malfoy said, smugly. “Slytherin.” As if that explained everything. In a weird way, it actually did. “That’s what she’s still alive.”

Harry opened his mouth for another argument…….

“But stating all the reasons why I’m better than you Potter would take weeks. Months even. What’s really important in this conversation, which I am extremely reluctantly having with you I might add, is that we have to get to Hogwarts to talk to McGonagall, and I am coming with you.”

Harry snorted so hard Hermione as afraid he might do himself an injury. “What makes you think I’ll let you come?”

“Contrary to your long-held assumption that the world revolves around you, Potter,” Malfoy snapped, “I’m going to make sure my son is alright. It has absolutely nothing to do with you, so stop being a conceited ass for once in your miserable existence, and let’s get a move on.”

“Oh, I’m the conceited ass?” Harry snarled, turning suddenly upon Malfoy who, Hermione was mildly impressed to notice, didn’t even flinch. Harry balled his fists together. “That’s rich coming from you, Malfoy!”

“Everything I do is rich,” Malfoy said, smugly. “Glad you finally realized that. It’s also brilliant and none of your business. So I’m going to Hogwarts to visit my son, and unless you plan to arrest me on trumped up charges” – his tone implied both that Harry was capable of this, being a shoddy Auror, and that he would sourly regret it if he did do this – “then I am going with you whether you like it or not.”

Harry groaned, attempting to find his glasses amid the mounds of paperwork they had disturbed. Eventually he gave up and simply summoned them. “What did I ever do in this life to deserve you, Malfoy,” he asked, rhetorically. 

“It’s Karma,” Malfoy advised him, placidly, and Hermione snorted.

“Let him come,” she told Harry. Their eyes met and Harry understood her meaning. They could keep a better eye on what Malfoy was up to when he was with them.

Harry shrugged his agreement, looking far from pleased.

There was silence for a while. Harry leaned back against one of the office walls and closed his eyes. He looked better, Hermione realized. More in control. Determined. Like he could handle this. Like he was going to figure this out and get his daughter back.

“You have to call your wife.” Malfoy wasn’t looking at either of them, but tipping his head back and pinching the bridge of his nose in a vain attempt to stop the bleeding. 

Harry looked over at him, glared. Looked away again. Then, to Hermione’s shock, hauled himself to his feet. “Yeah,” he mumbled, “alright. This connected to the Floo?” He waved at the empty stone grate that was in the wall to the right of Malfoy’s desk.

Malfoy grunted assent, still attempting not to swallow his own blood.

“Oh for goodness sakes,” Hermione interrupted, exasperated. “Are you a wizard or what?” 

Malfoy glared at her, but it was half-hearted at best. His voice was thickening, his nose probably broken as he pinched it closed. “Cahn’t fhind by wvand,” he informed her. “Lhost hit, somewhere.” He waved at the pile of paperwork literally engulfing his desk.

“Episky,” Hermione muttered, waving her wand. And his nose was back to normal. She didn’t expect any thanks from him, and she wasn’t disappointed when he gave her none. 

Nevertheless she reached out a hand and rested it on his arm. She half expected him to flinch from her touch – narrow-minded, bigoted idiot that he was – but all he did was look up at her and raise an eyebrow. Then she remembered that he was friends with an actual Muggle, and she wasn’t quite sure what to think anymore.

“Thank you,” she muttered, a bit ungraciously.

The eyebrow climbed still higher. “For what?” There was an awkward pause, and then Malfoy started laughing. “You thought I intervened on your behalf?” He was incredulous and 

Hermione felt her face flame. Of course he hadn’t. “Potter was yelling in my office,” Malfoy clarified, and then looked at her like she was crazy for thinking anything different.

Hermione mutely walked away from him. Of course he hadn’t intervened on her behalf. She was an idiot for thinking that. An absolute idiot.

She moved over to Harry’s side. He was leaning against Malfoy’s fireplace and looked up at her approach. He looked pale and broken in a way he hadn’t before the fire call. “Ginny’s meeting us at Hogwarts,” he told her, quietly. 

She nodded, not knowing what else to say to him. She wanted to say ‘sorry’ for not preventing this, but then remembered his sudden rage and felt that he should be saying ‘sorry’ to her.

He must have seen that thought on her face for he shot a guilt-ridden, apologetic look at her, before reaching out and taking her hands in both of his. He held them lightly and swallowed, looking lost like he had as a teenager when the Wizarding World expected him – a young boy – to save them all.

“Sorry, ‘Mione,” he muttered, refusing to look at her, but focusing on their joined hands. Harry never had been any good at apologies. And he’d always had a temper.

Hermione always put it down to being raised by those abusive relatives, and then having to go through a War, and believed that – all things considered – Harry had turned out   
more well-balanced than should be reasonably expected. She sighed. “It’s alright. Just don’t take your temper out on me again. You know that I am doing my absolute best to help you.”

Harry nodded earnestly, relieved that she wasn’t angrier.

Malfoy snorted.

“And everyone just excuses Saint Potter for his behavior, no matter how bad it gets.”

“Jealous, Malfoy,” Harry shot back without missing a beat. And without looking away from Hermione. 

She rolled her eyes at them both and disengaged her hands. She might have been more flattered by Harry’s attention had she not felt every nerve-ending of Harry’s light up with the challenge of further words exchanged with his arch-enemy. 

He didn’t have to look at Malfoy in order to do this.

She threw a handful of Floo powder into the fireplace. “We’ll Floo to the Atrium and then Apparate to the Gates of Hogwarts. I’m sure the Weasleys will meet us there.” She looked back up at the two men – boys really – and found them glaring at each other. 

Harry’s eye was starting to swell and Malfoy still had blood all over his chin and shirt. She groaned and dragged Harry towards the fireplace. “Are you coming, Malfoy?!” she snapped, before disappearing, with Harry still in tow, into the flames.

0oo0oo0  
O  
Oo  
O  
0oo0oo0

Headmistress McGonagall met Harry, Hermione and Malfoy at the gates to the castle. If she was surprised to see Malfoy in their midst she did not let on. They waited until a pale-faced Ginny, and a quiet, haunted Molly and Arthur arrived, before they proceeded up across the lawns and into the castle proper to McGonagall’s office.

On the way she showed them the exact spot that Lily had disappeared from: her place at the Slytherin table in the Great Hall.

Hermione ran a series of basic diagnostic tests but, like every other test concocted by the Auror and Unspeakable Departments, she came up with nothing. Lily had just vanished. 

Malfoy stayed behind in the Great Hall.

Waiting for Harry and Ginny in the Headmistresses office were the tear-streaked faces of their sons. James was too old to run to his mother, by he stood by her, silent and stunned, as Al was encased in her arms. He looked up into the stern, tense face of his father, but neither boy went to Harry for comfort.

As McGonagall explained what had happened – without even a breach in the Hogwarts wards – James and Al went and stood next to their grandfather

At the end of the Headmistresses explanation, Molly Weasley stood up and squeezed her hand. “Thank you, Minerva,” she told her old friend and Order companion. “We know that none of this is your fault, so don’t you go blaming yourself.”

McGonagall was looking as bad as Harry felt at the moment.

Molly was pulling Ginny up after her. “We’re just going to go home and get some personal effects of Lily’s for a locator spell. Then we’re going to the Daily Prophet. We’re doing well – our family – and maybe a reward will draw somebody out to say something.”

She moved fast, Molly Weasley, and before Harry could make the argument that Ginny should stay with him and their sons, both women were out the door.

There was a roaring in his ears. Dimly he heard Arthur reassuring his sons. He wanted to go to them, but he’d never been good at comforting them even when they were small children, let alone now when they were teenagers.

Hermione was talking frantically about something Arithmetical with McGonagall and Dumbledore’s portrait.

Malfoy wandered into the room, and things settled as Harry focused on him.

“Where’s the Weaselette?” he asked, sounding completely unconcerned.

“Out,” Harry said, shortly. “What were you doing?” he asked, suspiciously. He had forgotten that he and Hermione were supposed to be keeping an eye on the bastard.

“Had to make a call,” Malfoy returned unconcerned, still on his previous line of inquiry. “What do you mean, ‘out’?”

“I mean she just left, with Molly,” Harry said, shortly, in no mood for Malfoy at all right now. He wanted his wife. Ex-wife.

Malfoy wandered over to the window, still talking although no one was paying him any mind. “What do you mean, she just left.” He glanced down at the lawns and froze, eyes widening.

“Oh, shit,” Malfoy swore. “Shit, shit, shit, shit. SHIT!” The others in the room turned to look at him. 

“If you can’t keep a civil tongue in your mouth, Mr. Malfoy, I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” McGonagall said, severely. 

Malfoy was looking at something out of the window. Now he made for the door with all speed. He was practically sprinting. “Not a problem,” he snapped back at the assembled Gryffindors. And then he was pulling open the door and vanishing from the room.

Harry and Hermione went over to the window. There was nothing and no one outside. After a moment they saw Malfoy sprinting across the lawns in the direction of the gates and the Apparition point far in the distance.

A figure was waiting there for him.

Hermione wordlessly waved her wand, spelling her and Harry’s eyes to increase their long-range vision. 

It was the muggle woman. Eleanor Montgomery. Harry and Hermione watched as Malfoy said something, quickly, to her. Montgomery frowned at him and shook her head, before pointing violently in the direction of Hogwarts. When it looked like Malfoy was not listening, she physically shoved him back towards the castle. 

Then she turned and pulled out some sort of square, black box and extended an antenna. Hermione and Harry both saw when she hit something – whatever it was she was scanning for – for a light turned red on the box. 

She put it away, and pulled out three small black palls which she placed in a rough triangle around, or near perhaps, the area where the light on her strange box had flashed red.

Malfoy had stepped away from her, arms folded as he watched, but had refused to move otherwise.

There was a flash, a shimmering of blue-green light, from within the area encompassed by the triangle formed by the black, shiny spheres. Montgomery turned back towards Malfoy, her face was pale and serious. She said something that Hermione could not make out by lip-reading from this distance, and then she stepped into the midst of the shimmering triangle.

And vanished.

The spheres vanished with her.

Malfoy slowly turned around and made his way back towards Hogwarts. He looked troubled, even from this distance, and the dying rays of the setting sun turned his pale hair to gold.

Hermione turned to look at Harry. He was still watching Malfoy.

At last he turned to meet her gaze.

Did that Muggle woman just Apparate? He sent her with Legilimancy.

It looked like she followed Ginny and Molly. Somehow. Hermione sent back.

Hermione knew her eyes were alight with wonder as she nodded back. And then the next second both of them had left the assorted Weasleys behind and were running for the front door of the castle.

0oo0oo0  
0  
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0  
0oo0oo0

The first thing that Lily noticed was the darkness.

The second thing she noticed was the damp.

Underground, she thought. She couldn’t see, but she hauled herself into a sitting position and felt the ground around her. It was of cold stone, rough and craggy. Carefully she ran her hands out to either side. And then to the front. And then to the back.

Nothing.

She inched backwards. Slowly. Farther and farther.

At last her back struck a wall. It was a rough wall, with jagged bits sticking out into her back.

She attempted to stand up, and found she could. Waving her hands above her head and encountering nothing but empty space, Lily wondered how tall this place was. Carefully placing her right hand against stone, Lily followed the wall forwards. Eventually she came to a corner and turned left. 

After about ten paces she came to another corner and turned left again. T.hen another ten and she turned left again.

Here were the bars. Cold and metal and immovable. She felt carefully up and down as far as she could reach, but nothing seemed loose or rusted enough for her to break or bend. 

She attempted some wandless magic, but she’d never been very good at it, and she was still only a First Year.

At last she lay down in the darkness and attempted to sleep. Maybe soon someone would come with a light and explain what the hell was going on.

“Lily!” 

Lily’s eyes snapped open at the sound of her mother’s voice, and then she was almost blinded by the bright, white light which issued from Ginny’s wand and shone through the metal bars which covered the entrance to her cell.

“Mum!” she whispered back.

“Oh, thank god!” Ginny had dropped to her knees and reached for her daughter. Lily reached back. Rested her cheek against her mother’s through the space in the bars.

“Ginny, we have to hurry!” Hissed another voice from down the hallway, issuing from the darkness, and what Lily presumed to be the entrance to this subterranean dungeon.

“Grandmum!” she all but cried. Her mother hushed her.

“I’m here, sweetheart. And we’re all leaving. Ginny, they’ll be passing this way again in less than a minute. Get those bars open!”

Lily’s mother was staring at the bars with the glare of a research scientist, worrying her bottom lip between her top teeth.

“Stand back a bit,” she instructed her daughter, before waving her wand authoritatively and muttering some spell that was longer than any Lily had heard before. The metal bars – rusty but strong as stone – trembled like paper for a moment.

And then they silently collapsed into a pile of dust at Lily’s feet.

The grin her mother flashed Lily then was pure mischief, and justifiably proud. Lily ran to her then, wrapping her arms as tightly as she could around her Mum. Ginny squeezed her, hard, and laughed. “I’ve got you,” she whispered. Then she took Lily’s hand and started pulling her down the hallway towards her grandmother. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

As they half-ran passed further dark cells, Lily glanced in and saw pale shapes amid the gloom.

She tugged on her mother’s arm. “Mum, there are other people down here.”

Ginny doused the light. “I know,” she muttered quietly. They had reached Molly now, who took Lily’s other hand in the darkness. “We’ll tell your Dad, just as soon as we get out. We know where this place is now.”

And Lily knew, without having to ask, that what her mother was saying, was that they couldn’t rescue anyone else at the moment. If they tried, there was a good chance that no one would get out.

“Maybe we should have shot a patronus off to your father,” her grandmother murmured to her mother.

“Too late now,” Ginny said tersely. 

Then they were all still as they strained in the darkness, listening for the sound of footfalls. Even their breathing was silenced as they waited for movement and sound.

Then, without speaking, Lily’s grandmother tugged Lily and her mother down the hallway to their right. And Lily could hear it – the slow, steady tread of a guard – coming from the hallway to their left.

Lily, Ginny and Molly crept down the hallway just in front of the guard. Sometimes he or she came so close that they could make out the light from a wand. They moved as quickly as they were able to, but it felt like the footsteps were coming faster and faster.

The broke out, panting, into a large cavernous space.

“Let me risk a little more light,” Ginny muttered, and a dim glow lit up the space before them. Directly ahead lay an entrance. Lily thought that it looked like the way to the surface. 

There was only one slight problem.

There way was currently being blocked by a group of men and women – all ages and races – with weapons pointed at them in the darkness.

The footsteps behind them came charging out of the darkness. Several more men and women poured out of that exit.

They were surrounded.

Lily’s grandmother threw something to the ground. Impenetrable darkness spread around them, snuffing out the light of Lily’s captors, and Lily recognized Peruvian Darkness Powder from Uncle George’s shop.

A sudden shout and the Darkness vanished, leaving only the dim glow of the cavern behind.

A wave of fire spread out from Ginny, passing harmlessly over Molly and Lily, moving inexorably, with great speed, towards their attackers.

Only to be met with a wall of ice, upon which the fire dissipated in sudden mist and like rain.

The dimly lit chamber filled then with smoke and flashes of light. Lily felt the bubble of an extremely strong shield charm cover her. In between bursts of light she made out her   
mother and grandmother, ducking and weaving, faces intent and fell, as they faced over two dozen foes.

She heard the roar of Muggle firearms. 

Her mother was screaming.

A sudden burst of green light, and her grandmother dropped, as limp as a rag doll, to the stone floor.

Then all was still.

The room filled with bright, white light then, and Lily felt like throwing up.

Lily was too stunned to cry. None of this was real. Any second now she would wake up and she would be back in her bed in the Slytherin dormitories. It was all a dream; a nasty nightmare.

She looked downwards. Her grandmother looked like she was merely sleeping at an awkward angle, as she lay still and cold upon the ground. She looked over at her mother.  
Looked away again quickly. Didn’t realize that she was crying and shaking, and most likely going into shock. Her mother looked bad. There was a lot of blood.

Men and women were coming towards her now. They were speaking but there was a roaring in her ears, like the ocean. She could feel herself attempting to breathe and every breath entering her lungs like jagged pieces of glass.

One of the men reached out for her, still speaking. Lily jerked backwards, thought about running.

And then the attention of everyone else in the room was off her and towards the other hallway; the one down which Lily and her mother and grandmother had been attempting to flee towards.

A woman stood there. She was young and short and dangerous-looking. She was pale, with muddy brown hair. She should have looked non-threatening, but the way she was standing, the immobility of her features as she looked from Lily to the bodies of her mother and grandmother, made her look like the deadliest person in the room.

The others apparently did not think so, from the way that wands and muggle guns were pointed in the woman’s direction.

She met Lily’s eyes, for a split second. Pale green meeting wide, traumatized brown. And the world rushed back to Lily with an almost audible ‘Pop’.

“What the fuck are you doing here!” yelled the voice of one man. Obviously he didn’t deal well with pressure, Lily mused, old though he was, for his wand arm was shaking.

“Who are you?” came the much more reasonable tones of a middle-aged black man. Muggle, Lily suspected, given the fact that he didn’t carry a wand. But then again he didn’t seem to be carrying any sort of weapon at all, so maybe she was mistaken.

The strange woman didn’t answer for a moment, she was running a cool gaze over the assembled murderers before her. At last she turned and addressed the unarmed man, clearly designating him the leader. 

“My name is Eleanor Montgomery, and I followed the two witches. I see that you’ve already disposed of them.” Her voice was cold, dispassionate, almost robotic save for the elegant precision of her tones. 

It was a well-educated voice, Lily thought to herself. She was refusing to dwell on the content of the woman’s speech. If she thought too much, in a certain direction – like downwards to what, or who, lay at her feet – then everything would disintegrate again.

“Seems like you were a bit careless with your security. This has all turned into a large mess.” And now the woman’s voice was mocking and filled with a large amount of disappointment and a faint amount of disgust. As though she had expected better of them. The black man was gazing at her with suspicion, but Lily saw the others straighten up as though to better meet this strange woman’s approval. 

It was the woman’s tone of voice. She was using the same tone that Grandmum Molly had always used on her grown sons. An almost motherly or grandmotherly voice, a voice that every single person remembered from childhood – even if they had never had a mother. 

Al always said that it was ingrained in a person’s DNA; response to that tone in a woman’s voice.

Rose used it a lot on James.

Lily hastily brought her attention back to what was doing on in front of her – not at her feet, but at eye level and above only – and it was a good thing too for the conversation had returned to a discussion about her; their prisoner.

The woman waved a hand in Lily’s direction. “The child seems remarkably mature for her years. Either that or she’s about to go into shock. Maybe you should do something about that.” Her voice was so cold and uncaring that Lily didn’t fool herself for a moment thinking that the strange woman cared one whit for her comfort or her well-being.

One or two faces glanced in her direction, but most stayed trained upon the stranger in their midst.

“Who are you?” And now the black man did have a weapon. He had obviously decided that the woman was muggle as well, for a handgun now appeared in his grip, pointed squarely in the woman’s face.

“I told you my name already.”

“Where are you from?” The man was patient. He was refusing to dance to the woman’s tune. Lily decided that he was the most dangerous of the lot.

The woman’s face was still expressionless, her eyes cold and faintly assessing. “I’m from a foreign government, sent on a scouting mission. I was given orders to make contact with you.”

“Why?”

There was a pause as the woman once again looked over the motley assemblage.

“In order to see if we should join you.”

****


	9. Convergence and Mourning

Disclaimer: I don’t own any part of the world of Harry Potter. All I own is Ellie Montgomery, and I think she might disagree with even that. Bit of a rough chapter ahead. Let me know what you think, and thank you for the lovely reviews I have gotten. They are so very much appreciated. Reviews make me write faster – and better lol.

Chapter Nine – Convergence and Mourning

 

By the time Harry and Hermione had reached the ground floor of Hogwarts, Malfoy had already wandered back into the Great Hall and was up to something suspicious at the Slytherin Table. They knew this because it looked like half of the potions room had been emptied and deposited on the table where students generally ate. Malfoy himself was muttering angrily over a book and poking at some sort of steaming potion directly in front of him.

“Work, damn you,” he snarled, sticking his face over the potion. 

Which promptly exploded.

He looked up at them with blackened face, soot-filled hair sticking straight up and malevolent grey eyes.

Harry snorted. “Having a problem there, Malfoy?” he asked, sweetly.

“Shut up, Potter!”

Harry turned to Hermione and confided in her in a carrying whisper, “You see here, Hermione, what we have in front of us is the classic Malfoy in his natural habitat; failing at everything in plain view of an audience.”

Malfoy sneered but didn’t reply. He was too busy attempting to flatten his hair with a spell, and scourgifying his face.

Hermione folded her arms and fixed the former Slytherin with a look that would have made McGonagall proud. “What exactly is it that you’re trying to accomplish here, Malfoy?” she demanded.

Malfoy looked Hermione over from top to bottom. A piece of his long, pale blond hair – so like Lucius’ – fell over his eyes from the cool autumn breeze blowing into the Hall from the open front doors of the Castle.

Harry’s hands twitched to shove it aside so he could read Malfoy’s eyes. He’d always been good a reading what Malfoy was up to when they were children, but now……now he was finding that some of Malfoy’s expressions were completely foreign to him, and he didn’t like it at all.

It meant that Malfoy could catch him with something completely unexpected. Something he couldn’t prepare for. Like now for instance.

Instead of casting a slur upon Hermione’s birth as expected or even sneering again – his tried and true expression for any and all situations, patented since 1981 – he merely shook his head. “If you can’t figure it out, Granger, then I have no intention of enlightening you.”

He brushed the blond strand out of his face, checked to make sure that he had gotten rid of all the soot on his person, and then bent his head once more over his potions.

“Where did Ginny and Molly go?”

“No idea.”

“Really? So then where did your muggle friend disappear to?”

“Don’t care. And she’s not my friend, Granger, so get your facts straight.”

“But you still know where she went,” Hermione pushed.

“Does McGonagall know you’re doing this?!” Harry interrupted, loudly. He waved his hand at Malfoy’s impromptu Potions Lab. “These……..experiments, or whatever they are?”

“Professor McGonagall, Harry.”

“Headmistress McGonagall, Potter, honestly. Were you raised in a barn?” Hermione and Malfoy spoke at the same time.

They shot each other equally alarmed looks at this new development. Hermione shuddered and Malfoy grimaced, and Harry……..well Harry rolled his eyes at both of them. “Whatever. Does she?”

“Of course she does, Potter. I, unlike you, have lovely manners and don’t go around sticking my nose into other people’s business without asking permission.”

“That’s fascinating, Malfoy, really,” Harry growled, about ready to tell him where he could go shove his pert opinions on manners when Hermione beat him to it.

“And where has the evidence of all these manners been, Malfoy?” she enquired, pleasantly. Pleasant, from Hermione, was never a good sign. Usually it meant she was about to trap you using your own words and then metaphorically hang you with them. Harry smirked.

Malfoy looked between them both.

“Just because I don’t use them for the likes of you two doesn’t mean I don’t possess them.” Malfoy wasn’t falling for it. He sniffed, dramatically. “Can’t be bothered for plebian tits.”

Harry had his mouth open to ask who, exactly, Malfoy was calling a tit when he was interrupted once again. This time by a scream.

It was coming from outside.

In a flash, Harry and Hermione were at the front doors. Malfoy followed them at a more leisurely pace. Not even imminent death was going to cause him to mess up the hair he had just put back into place.

By the time the two friends had reached the front steps a middle-aged, dark-haired woman was all but sprinting up the lawn, the last sunlight of the day behind her, obscuring her features and casting long shadows. She was sobbing.

As she came up to them she all but threw herself into Harry’s arms. “Harry,” she gasped, trying to speak through the blubbering, “oh Harry it’s awful!” And with a shock Harry recognized her as Cho Chang.

He turned to Hermione in mute appeal. “Flying instructor,” Hermione said, explaining Cho’s purpose at the school and answering Harry’s question without him even having to ask it. As per usual. She took Cho from Harry’s loose grip and shook her gently.

“What’s awful, Cho? What’s happened?”

Malfoy had come up to Harry’s other side and was shading his eyes from the sunlight as he peered towards the gates, far in the distance and all but out of sight within the trees. “Apparition point,” he said to Harry.

Cho nodded, still sobbing. She tried to hold Harry back as the other two started running down the grass. “Oh Harry, don’t go!” she begged him. “Send someone else!”

Harry could hear footsteps pounding down stairs behind him in the castle. He ripped himself from Cho and took off after Hermione and Malfoy, already half-way across the lawn.

He looked behind him quickly as he ran; saw McGonagall and Mr. Weasley running after him. McGonagall could move quite quickly for such an old woman.

Ginny and Molly have only been gone for thirty minutes. If that.

I don’t even know where they went.

It would be completely illogical to think that it would be them, came the voice in his head which sounded like his inner Hermione.

But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew what he would find at the warded gates onto the Hogwarts Grounds.

Before him he saw Malfoy and Hermione come to a stop. Hermione sank to her knees in the rutted track that rain through the grass. Malfoy was a pillar in black with a halo of silver hair at her side.

Before them both, lying still and contorted, were two bodies with long, fiery red hair.

The sun had slipped completely below the horizon and around them the woods were dark and silent.

“NOOOOOO!” 

Harry was shocked to realize that the wail came not from him, but from Mr. Weasley, who barreled past Harry and threw himself down to ground besides his wife and his daughter.

“Molly!” he called, taking her cold, bruised face in his hands. “Molly!”

Hermione, still kneeling on the ground, face white, and eyes huge and haunted, reached out a hand to gently place on Mr. Weasley’s back. He started sobbing, great gasping sobs. “No,” he whispered. “It was over. It was all supposed to be over!”

Professor McGonagall, panting, moved past Harry with her wand out. She ran her wand quickly over the bodies, assessing the damage. “Avada Kedavra,” she said grimly as she examined Molly’s body. She frowned as she looked over to Ginny’s.

There was a roaring in Harry’s ears. Everything seemed distant, as though it was happening to someone else, as though it was happening to a character on the Telly, and not to him. But he could hear every violent thump of his heart, feel every jagged breath of air he drew into his lungs.  
Ginny’s body looked far worse than Molly’s. Her face had been slashed by a spell; her right arm was severed almost clean off by what looked like some sort of blade. But neither of those was what had killed her.

McGonagall was still frowning. “No spell was the cause of death.” She spun and shot off a patronus back in the direction of the castle. “Madam Pomfrey will know.”  
But Madam Pomfrey wasn’t needed for Hermione moved up to the Headmistress’ side. Her pale face was resolute. She was an Unspeakable now. She would have time to mourn later. 

“Single caliber weapon. Nine millimeter. Hollow-point rounds. Designed to inflict maximum damage.” Her voice was clinical, detached. Harry heard her as if from miles away.  
Ginny didn’t look like Ginny anymore. She didn’t look like anything anymore.

Lines of Maternal Descent, his daughter whispered to him.

“What?” Professor McGonagall asked Hermione.

“Muggle guns,” Malfoy explained. He was frowning down at the body. At Ginny.

Arthur was attempting to put Molly’s hair back into place, his hands were shaking, but he was obviously listening. He didn’t seem able to look at his daughter’s face.

“Where’s Lily?” Harry asked. It felt like there were marbles in his mouth, like he didn’t know how to say the words. There was déjà vu there too. He had said these words before, right? “Here are her mother and her grandmother. Where is my daughter?”

McGonagall shot off another spell, checking for signs of humans, dead or alive. Nothing.

“Not here, Potter. Luckily.” Malfoy had pulled out what looked like a Muggle surgical glove and now he reached out and dug into Ginny’s chest, into the blood, into her life’s blood, to pull out a bullet.

Before Harry even knew what he was doing, his hands were on Malfoy, hauled him up and physically throwing him away from Ginny’s body.

“DON’T YOU TOUCH HER!” he roared at the other man, who lost his bullet and was now trying to locate it again. “DON’T YOU FUCKING TOUCH HER!” And he threw himself at Malfoy again, hands around the other man’s throat. “WHERE’S YOUR FRIEND, MALFOY? WHERE’S YOUR MUGGLE?! WHY ISN’T SHE HERE? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING IN THE MDIDLE OF ALL THIS! WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS IN THE MIDDLE OF ALL OF THIS?!”

Malfoy kneed him in the groin. Shoved Harry off him.

Harry drew his wand.

Malfoy drew his.

And then the spells started flying.

It was, Hermione reflected much later, a good thing that Malfoy fought dirty, for otherwise he would have been dead in the first few seconds, for Harry was throwing every spell in the Auror’s repertoire, every dark curse he had ever learned from the people he put away for a living.

Death curses mingled with evisceration spells and organ liquefying hexes. Malfoy ducked and rolled and gave as good as he got. The clearing filled with light and smoke as Harry strove to get at Malfoy, and Malfoy………well it looked like, to the practiced eye, that Malfoy was just egging Harry on, but that he had no intention of ending this one way or the other. 

“Harry! HARRY!” Hermione was screaming at him.

Red sparks came from his side as McGonagall attempted to stun them both. Harry effortlessly deflected them.

Arthur’s “Boys, boys!” went completely unheeded by either party.

“Come on, Potter,” Malfoy taunted. “Is that the best you’ve got?” They were circling each other now, wary like two adversaries who had underestimated each other and were now attempting to reassess. “Never could deal with your grief like a rational person, could you. Always translates into rage for you, doesn’t it? Well here I am, Potter. With your wife’s blood on my hands. What are you going to do about it?”

Hermione was really starting to consider the fact that Malfoy had a death wish.

She put her wand away and raised both hands. This spell was tricky. She slammed her hands together. A bright white wave of light, like a physical force, boomed out from her and slammed into Harry and Malfoy, knocking them flat. Hermione raised her wand to immediately immobilize both of them when……

“Stop it, Granger!” Malfoy yelled. “Let this end the way it was always supposed to!”

Hermione ignored him completely and started to cast the spell…….

“What, with you two kissing?!” yelled a female voice from behind them.

Hermione dropped her wand in shock.

Harry, Draco and Hermione turned to look. Pansy Parkinson stood there, next to a Ron Weasley who had silent tears tracking down his face.

“Knock it off, you two,” Ron said, wearily. “There’s been enough death here today, hasn’t there?” His voice was utterly exhausted, and he maintained a death grip on his girlfriend’s hand, as if Pansy was the only thing holding him up at the moment.

George had Apparated in with them. Now he stood with his arms around his father as they contemplated two more family members they had lost. Ron and Pansy went over to them.

Hermione pulled out a pocket mirror. She twisted something on its side and when a face appeared in it she began to speak. “Inform the First Response Team that we’ve had another related killing. And send the Aurors down here as well.”

“Down where, ma’am?” came the young voice of the dispatcher. 

“Hogwarts,” Hermione whispered. “School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”

Hermione turned back to McGonagall and the newly arrived Madam Pomfrey. The Unspeakables and Aurors arrived a split second later.

“Boss.” Romilda had a hand held under his nose. She pulled him to his feet before she turned and offered a hand to Malfoy. “We’ve got it from here, Boss,” she told Harry. At her side, Teddy was green-looking but his eyes shined with determination and worry for his adopted-Uncle.

Hermione was directing the Unspeakables. The Weasleys were huddled together. “Someone’s going to have to tell the children,” he said, gruffly, and saw Hermione nod that she’d heard him.

Then he turned and walked away.

He did not see Malfoy’s narrowed gaze upon his back as he left.

“Can’t say it would surprise me in the slightest,” Pansy muttered.

“What?” Ron asked.

She shook her head. “Never mind.”

0  
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The funeral was held that very weekend on the grounds of Hogwarts itself.

After all, both Molly Prewitt Weasley and Ginevra Weasley Potter were heroes of the War, defenders of the school itself at the Battle of Hogwarts.

Harry turned up hung-over. This was actually a huge accomplishment and step up because for the previous days he had been completely drunk. Who had told James and Albus   
Severus that there mother was dead – and their grandmother – he did not know. He suspected a combination of Hermione and Mr. Weasley, but in truth he did not care. He had drunk himself into an oblivion, and when he had woken up he had gone over every single note he had on the Strckland Case, requesting everything from Ginny and Molly’s Crime Scene from an increasingly disapproving Romilda, and drinking steadily throughout the day.

The next two days passed much the same way. Harry discovered no more leads – although that could have been because he was too drunk to concentrate properly. But that didn’t explain everybody else’s lake of progress.

Ron and Pansy planned the funeral. All of Hogwarts was invited. The majority of the Wizarding World was showing up.

There would be a buffet after the ceremony.

And Harry was expected to give a speech.

He decided on the day of that he wasn’t going.

Hermione and Romilda turned up a seven in the morning, before Harry had time to start drinking from the night before, and bullied him into getting up. Romilda made coffee as black as her hair while Hermione shoved Harry into the bathroom with firm orders to take a cold, five minute shower. She even spelled the water to be icy no matter what Harry tried.

“They’ve decided to have Luna and the Minister for Magic give a speech, instead of you,” Hermione informed him as she wrestled him into a semi-respectable shirt.

“Who decided?” Harry questioned groggily.

“Ron and that tar-“ Hermione broke off at Romilda’s disapproving frown. She cleared her throat. “Parkinson,” she got out through gritted teeth, shoving the coffee at Harry.

Neither of them attempted to do anything at all with his hair.

Ginny would have tried. And Mrs. Weasley. 

Harry blinked hard and tried to focus on his reflection in the mirror. His black wizarding robes were of fine quality, the shirt under them was a dark grey. His face was pale, his eyes sunken, their green almost extinguished to a sickly yellow color.

Hermione came up and put her arms around him. Together they stared into the mirror. She looked very nice as well. Her riotous hair was up in a severe bun. Her flowing robes made her look a bit like Snape.

Harry caught himself before he told her this. Probably not the right time.

“You look very nice, Harry,” she told him quietly.

He nodded, attempted to swallow through the lump in his throat. Ginny would often tell him that he looked nice as well. He had a feeling that these past few years he hadn’t actually appreciated all of the little compliments she used to give him.

“Well how do I look?” interrupted a voice. “Personally, I think this dress makes me look fat.”

Romilda was looking critically down at a very lacy, short frock she was wearing. Her muscular arms were bare, exposing numerous tattoos and some scars. She looked like a biker chick in a prom dress.

Harry snorted at the image, and then immediately felt guilty for laughing at anything today.

“Oh that’s nice!” she exclaimed.

“Why are you even here, again?” he asked her.

“I’m in charge of security for the event,” she informed him not able to totally hide the smug even on such a solemn occasion. “Minister’s orders. Apparently he sees me as your second-in-command.”

Harry mock grimaced. “When did that happen?” he wondered.

She shrugged. “Beats me.”

There was a knock on Harry’s front door, shortly followed by Ron entering anyway, without waiting for an invitation. Pansy followed him, looking loving in dark purple robes. “Ready, Harry?” he asked. Actually stopped and looked at his best friend’s face.

“It’ll be alright, mate,” he promised. “Just a couple hours and then you can come back here.”

“Your sons need to see you, anyway,” Pansy said. 

Harry flinched, feeling another, deeper stab of guilt. He hadn’t seen them at all, hadn’t even firecalled, since……..everything had happened. 

He didn’t notice Hermione glaring at Pansy for her lack of tack. Pansy didn’t notice either. She was staring at Harry with her eyes narrowed. Harry mildly wondered if this was a common Slytherin reaction to him personally, or if all the Slytherin’s he knew were in the habit of thinking him lower than a slugworm.

Ron shifted uncomfortably, unwilling to get involved.

Then Pansy reached out and placed a hand, gently, on Harry’s arm. “Your sons need their father at a time like this. It doesn’t matter what you’re feeling. It doesn’t even matter what you say to them. They just need you to be there for them. They need to know that you haven’t left them as well.”

She grabbed his chin in a lightning fast move and made him meet her eyes. They were dark, like Hermione’s, like Ginny’s. “Are you listening to me, Harry Potter?” she said, forcefully. “You hoist up that famous Gryffindor courage and you be there for James and Al.”

“Albus Severus,” Harry muttered, rebelliously, wondering how he always managed to surround himself with such forceful women, for Hermione and Romilda were nodding along with Pansy.

Ron was looking mildly alarmed that his ex-wife and his girlfriend were agreeing on anything.

And Pansy, surprisingly, smiled at him. It didn’t look as bad as he’d been led to believe from Hermione’s rants. “That’s the spirit,” she told him.

And they all left the house together.

“We are gathered here today on this solemn occasion to honor the passing of two heroic women……..” Headmistress McGonagall began.

Harry sat in the front row, one arm around each of his remaining children. When James and Albus Severus had seen him they had forgotten that they were teenagers and that James, at least, didn’t like him. They had run to him and as Harry had held them he felt that same plunging in his stomach as he desperately wondered where Lily was.  
If she was even still alive.

Malfoy’s Muggle hadn’t been seen since that day either.

Harry knew this because Malfoy now had a constant tale, an expert, from the Unspeakables. Hermione had recommended someone, Gawaine Goodman. Said he was the best.

And there Malfoy was, with Andromeda on one side of him and two empty chairs on the other. Harry narrowed his eyes as he followed Malfoy’s glare to a tall, brown-haired woman with a pale, tired expression, and a young man with shocking white-blonde hair besides her. They were sitting as far away from Malfoy as it was possible to get.

Harry felt absurdly glad that Malfoy was almost as miserable as he was.

He searched for Teddy and Romilda, patrolling around the perimeter. He kept half an ear on Luna’s eulogy and half of his attention on the other Aurors who Romilda had placed on Security today.

Lines of Maternal Descent, Lily’s voice whispered to him.

Everyone had always told him that Lily Evans was extraordinarily powerful; especially for a Muggle-born.

Ginny had had impressive power behind her spells.

It had been Molly who had taken out the infamous, deadly Bellatrix Lestrange.

His eyes slid back to Andromeda Tonks and Draco Malfoy, sitting together on that bench. Narcissa Malfoy was not there; had not left the Manor since the War ended.

No one had bothered Andromeda Black Tonks personally during the War.

Bellatrix had been the one to take out Nymphadora Tonks.

As he watched, Romilda Vane stopped and exchanged a word with a man sitting in one of the aisles. With a start Harry recognized him as Theodore Nott, Romilda’s husband. He had forgotten that she had married Nott.

There were two boys sitting next to the man. Hogwarts age. Older than James, both of them. Sixth and Seventh year, probably. The younger one looked like his father, that same weedy, underfed look.

But the elder……..well the elder looked like a young Sirius Black.

Harry turned to Hermione. Saw her already looking back and forth between Romilda and Andromeda Tonks.

And then Romilda looked up and gave Draco Malfoy a look that Harry had seen a thousand times from Hermione; a look that promised he was in big trouble. It was a family look, a look of a sister to a troublemaking brother, or a good friend to another good friend. They had been close for years.

They were family. Somehow.

Was Romilda adopted? Hermione sent to him with Legilimancy.

Ron had noticed their sudden inattention and was looking suspiciously between them both.

Harry shrugged at them both.

Makes sense, though. Harry sent back after Ron had turned away. She’s definitely a Black though. Somehow.

Hermione nodded. 

Harry narrowed his eyes. Now, at least, he had a place to start. The Black family was involved in all of this. Somehow. And if he wanted to get his daughter back, well they were going to tell him everything they were up to.

0  
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Romilda sidled up to Draco at the funeral. Under cover of the crying she poked him, viciously, in the shoulder. He turned to her with an outraged expression on his face.

“Ouch, harpy,” he snapped, rubbing his arm.

She rolled her eyes. “Quit being such a baby, and tell me what the hell you’re playing at with Harry.”

Draco pleaded ignorance. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She snorted. “You know damn well what I’m talking about. Stay off of his radar we told you. Avoid attracting his or Hermione’s attention we said. And now look what you’ve done!   
Two all-out brawls with the man in as many days! He’s suspicious! He bloody well knows you’re up to something, and it’ll only be a matter of time before he pieces together mine and Aunt Andromeda’s connection to all of this!”

“Well he sure as hell will if you physically assault me in public. Just like your mother, I might add.”

Romilda kicked him, hard, in the shin.

Draco all but fell over. She wore iron-tipped boots. A useful precaution she had found it to be, over the years.

“You deserved that,” Romilda told his hunched and heavy-breathing form. “I feel no pity for you. You know exactly how I feel about my birth mother. And don’t think to distract me from this whole Harry Potter issue. Stay away from him.”

“At least until we have results,” Aunt Andromeda said, soft voice cutting through the argument. “Draco, dear, you did deserve that.”

Draco glared at both Black women and then stomped off. 

His son saw him coming in his direction and hastily ducked behind a tree.

“Avoiding your father is not the right answer, Scorpius,” Astoria Greengrass said, reprovingly.

“Like you’re not doing the same thing,” Scorpius told the neighboring tree.

It didn’t have a response to this.

“Romilda.” Andromeda Black detained her niece with one pale hand on her Auror robes. Romilda refused to look at her; she knew what Aunt Andromeda would say and she wasn’t ready to hear it. Even after all these years. She doubted she would ever be ready to hear it. “Draco’s words were spoken in hast, but he was not wrong. Your mother was brilliant and beautiful and fearless, in spite of all the darkness she embraced, and that is what I see every time I look at you as well.”

Romilda, eyes misty, cursed the fact that everyone always seemed to end up crying at funerals.

o  
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oo  
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Note: We’ll be back to more action and plotting next chapter. Just thought I’d take a moment to try and digest – and honor – Ginny and Molly’s passing.


	10. A Shift in Perspective

Chapter Ten: A Shift in Perspective

Disclaimer: I am so very sorry for this really delayed update to this story. Real life just came up like a tsunami and swept away everything in its path. But now that NaNoWriMo is back and I am being forced to write every day, the updates will come. Just to let you know, there is a shift in tone back to a lighter feel. I was re-reading my last chapter and it got dark so very quickly. Once again, I own nothing of the Harry Potter universe except for Eleanor Montgomery, who will once again be up to her suspicious activities. I would be thrilled if you would leave a review! What you thought was good, what needs work. Thank you!

****

Harry Potter was on the warpath.

Maybe it had to do with the fact that it was now three weeks since Ginny and Molly’s funeral, and he’d had enough drinking himself into a stupor and then sobering himself up to go into the office. Maybe it was the fact that there hadn’t been another kidnapping or murder since his wife/ex-wife and mother-in-law had been killed. Maybe it was the fact that he was tired of Verna’s disapproving looks and annoyed little sniffs, or the way that Hermione had started to avoid him because she didn’t want to tell him her latest theories about the case. Maybe it was the simple, and yet somehow obnoxious, fact that he hadn’t seen a sign of Draco Malfoy since the funeral, Gawaine Goodman – his Unspeakbale watcher – had reported nothing suspicious at all for two week and had been reassigned, and he kept getting Malfoy’s annoying little missives signed with the heading if the Department of Archives and Redundant Paperwork every other hour.

Maybe it had to do with the fact that Harry hadn’t been able to locate either Andromeda Black or Eleanor Montgomery and that Romilda Vane was playing dumb about the whole thing. Not even Teddy was willing to fess up to anything, or even knew anything, from what Harry had been able to discern.

He was tired and cross and at the end of his rope.

On the plus side there had been no more murders to add to the Strickland Case. On the negative side, there was no more progress being made on the Strickland Case.

It was all Going To Hell.

The Wizarding Public had started to cautiously call it a victory. Whatever had happened between the Murderers and Molly Weasley and Ginny Potter had obviously ended the long months of fear and death. And since those two women were related somehow to Harry Potter, their Chosen One, the Boy Who Live to Defeat Voldemort and now ended other Villains Through His General All-Around Awesomeness, he was getting all the credit.

His name was all over the newspapers again, mixed in with articles detailing his heroic struggles with alcohol, his two sons still at Hogwarts, and all of the people he had lost in his life while fighting the good fight. Mr. Weasley and the rest of the Weasley Clan were subdued and mostly avoiding him. He’d run into George the other day, who’d taken him out to a pint, but hadn’t really said a word the entire time, and he’d visited Ron at WZ Pharmaceuticals the other day, where he’d had to endure prolonged exposure to Blaise Zabini and his……..personality. But that had been it.

And no one, not the newspapers, not even the Weasleys, were mentioning his daughter to him; his missing daughter. Harry dreamed of her every night. He went over the case files every day. He followed up with Dawlish and Hopkins who had been given the case for new leads multiple times throughout the workday. Nothing changed. He went over the Slytherin Table where she was taken. He tried to backtrack the way that Molly and Ginny had been sent to the outskirts of the Hogwarts Wars. He called in the Unspeakables and the Experimental Charms Division and wrote to experts from all over Europe in magical transportation and wizard signatures.

He spoke to Hermione about what Lily had told him; Lines of Matrilineal Descent. But not even Hermione had been able to find any record of anything regarding that in any library she had checked.

After the first week the dreams of Lily had turned into nightmares, but he had still been unwilling to think the simple truth that his daughter was dead. It just wasn’t true. He was Harry Potter. He was a hero for God’s sake. He was supposed to be able to deal with these things. He was the one who should be in danger, be kidnapped and tortured and afraid; not his eleven-year-old daughter. 

The second week had seen Harry receive a letter of condolence from Scorpius Malfoy – or Greengrass, or whatever the boy was calling himself these days. He was Lily’s best friend, apparently; a Slytherin and Draco Malfoy’s son. It was all just so very confusing.

Dear Mr. Potter, (the letter had begun, and Harry, even in his state of worry and pain and grief, made sure to mark that the boy’s manners were Better Than His Scum Of A Father)

My sincere condolences on the loss of your wife and mother-in-law, and the pain that the disappearance of Lily must be causing you. I am sure that you are doing all you can to locate her. Lily is the most resourceful and resilient person I have ever met, and a dear friend. I am sure that she is fighting, and any help you need to locate her, just ask me.

Sincerely,  
Scorpius Draconis Black-Malfoy Greengrass

Harry had snorted at the overly formal language coming from a twelve-year-old, but figured that’s what you got from raising your son to be a Pompous Pureblood Prince.

Besides, his daughter was resilient. If she could survive Slytherin House, she could survive until he found her.

Third week saw him in the depths of despair. He’d tried to explain it to Hermione when she’d come to forcibly drag him from his office to get a couple hours of sleep. “I’m not doing anything right!” he’d railed at her, at the absolute end of his rope and all but crying in frustration. Hermione stared at him with that blank look she had perfected over the last two weeks. He knew that she was driving herself harder and harder to look for any and all clues or patterns, and that her search was bringing up nothing. He had attempted to convince her that this wasn’t her fault, any of it, but to no avail. Really, Hermione was turning into him, with all the blame she was heaping upon her own shoulders. It was just that   
he really did deserve the blame, which was what he was trying to tell her.

“I’m supposed to be the hero, the savior. I’m the goddamn Boy Who Lived,” he snarled. 

Hermione, knowing that he wasn’t the least bit angry at her, but rather at his own fallibility and the fact that he just wasn’t smart enough or fast enough or strong enough or even lucky enough to crack this case wide open, watched him dispassionately. She was running on next to no sleep and had been checking on her own children several times a day – as well as on Harry’s – just to make sure that they were all doing alright. Well, as alright as could be expected given the circumstances.

“That doesn’t mean you have to do everything by yourself, Harry,” she consoled him. “It doesn’t mean that you have to be the one to find Lily. That’s why you have a whole Department of Aurors under your command.”

“But yes, it does Hermione,” he insisted. “That’s exactly what being Harry Potter means. I’m the hero. I’m supposed to be the one who confronts the dragon and saves the princess. I’m supposed to be the one who defeats the villain and brings peace to the Wizarding World. That’s what being a hero means. It means that it is always your fault, and it is always your responsibility. It is always you who has to bear the burden and make the sacrifices. But I have no idea how to make a sacrifice because I don’t know who the enemy is! And so Ginny and Molly – who decided not to tell me, or anyone else, anything – knew something that I should have known and went in my place. Tell me exactly how I am not at fault for this, Hermione! Because deep down, you know that I am.”

Hermione had left his office in a thoughtful frame of mind, and now it was week four and Harry was extremely pissed off. Sometimes, he thought to himself, as he stood outside the Tonks-Lupin residence under his invisibility cloak, being the hero means applying force in a direction that might appear to be slightly morally ambiguous.

When Teddy Lupin Apparated in from his shift, Harry silently and efficiently stunned and kidnapped his own godson. He had tried to be patient, he really had, but enough was enough. Andromeda Black was involved in all of this somehow. She had been missing from her work and her own home for three weeks, and Teddy Lupin wasn’t saying a word.   
Harry had tried the nice approach, but it had involved patience and he was never known for his patience. If he knew anything about the Black sisters it was that all three of them were extremely gifted and scarily brilliant. He was convinced that Bellatrix in her heyday could have even given Hermione and Dumbledore and run for their money. And Snape.  
And that meant that Andromeda Black would not have left her grandson – and Romilda Vane, however the woman was related to the Blacks – without some sort of magical alarm  
that let her know if something happened to them.

Harry suspected that his kidnapping of Teddy – without tell the boy his true identity – would be enough of a draw to bring the powerful witch to him. And when she came – if she somehow managed not to kill him in her rage – he was planning on demanding some answers.

****

Howard Cho, former Ravenclaw, now head of the Daily Prophet, was at the office religiously at 6 am every morning. He had been following the same practice of an early start since he had begun his career at the Prophet thirty-five years ago, at the very rung of the establishment; the Obituaries.

In any other culture this would have been a fairly prestigious job, Obituaries are, after all, fairly entertaining to read. The way people try to politely word death and avoid saying anything bad about the newly dead person – even if they were a first-class tit – has been an exercise in humor and subtlety since Obituaries became a thing. 

Probably sometime during the Middle Ages, Cho thought to himself. Those people had really twisted senses of humor.

He hummed absently to himself as he locked up the house and then Apparated to the office. The weather was unusually fine this late-fall morning. Although the sun would not rise for several hours, the wind had died down to a minimum and it was even mildly warm out instead of the raw, bite he expected from mid-November. The moon had vanished beneath the horizon, and the stars had all faded beneath the black-purple glow that hovered over the east, but it wasn’t really dark out. Diagon Alley was filled with streetlamps and the shop lights of those owners who believed in getting as early a start to the day as he did himself.

He was always the second one to the office, despite how early he arrived. Susan Clarence was one of the junior editors on the cookery department and her ambitious nature and ability for hard work reminded him of himself at that age. He figured that the young woman would go far and was thinking about moving her over to the sports department to see how she handled the chaos that was the Quidditch Section.

When he walked into the main office though he knew that something was off. Although all the cubicles were darkened, and only the far lights of his office and the break room were lit, he knew that there were someone else here besides him and Susan. One look at the blanched face of his young employee told him that.

He tried anyway. “How are you this morning, Susan,” he asked, attempting a light, civil tone and unable to disguise the suspicion or fear that colored his words.

Susan merely raised on shaky arm, her eyes wide with shock, and pointed towards his office. “Someone to see you, sir,” she all but whispered.

Howard Cho walked towards his office on shaking legs, cursing himself for the first time for not being in Gryffindor House and thus thinking nothing of walking headlong into potential danger. All he seemed capable of thinking about at this moment was the possibility that a very dangerous murderer, or murderers, could be sitting in his office at this very moment and waiting with baited breath for him to arrive.

The fact that such a person or persons would hardly have bothered to leave Susan Clarence alive did not once cross his mind either, and might have made a more rational person – or someone with a more sarcastic brain – question whether he deserved to have been sorted into Ravenclaw either. Nevertheless he walked into his office and almost had a heart attack anyway, for there, sitting calmly in the chairs reserve for guests were Molly Weasley, Lily Potter and his own investigative journalist Ginny Weasley Potter, who smiled at him brightly as he walked in.

“Hello, Mr. Cho,” she said. Mrs. Weasley told him that he was looking unwell and had better sit down, and little Lily Potter gave him a half-hearted wave. All three ladies looked to be in the prime of health, although Ginny looked mildly annoyed.

After a moment, during which he managed to fall more or less into his own chair, and gripped the side of his desk while rapidly swallowing and trying to process this strange turn of events, he turned to his visitors. “Nightmare?” he asked hopefully. Ginny shook her head. “Ghosts?” he tried again. Another head shake. “Drug induced hallucinations?” he tried somewhat desperately.

“Young man, are you telling me that you would touch a mind-altering substance?” Mrs. Weasley demanded loudly.

“That’s a ‘no’, then,” he muttered somewhat disconsolately. Susan stuck her head in the door and nervously asked if anyone wanted coffee or tea. She seemed incapable of looking away from Ginny. Although this was understandable. They both had, after all, last seen her in the pages of the Daily Tattler in illegal pictures taken from the crime scene itself, where she was covered in blood, missing quite a few limbs and most assuredly dead.

“How are you not dead?” he demanded, brought back to the most pressing question now that everyone had declined to offer of a hot beverage. Lily Potter looked at the ground, avoiding his eyes, Mrs. Weasley swelled like a bullfrog as though about to launch into a demand that he mind his own business, and Ginny cut her off with a “It’s a very long story.” Mrs. Weasley deflated and looked mildly disappointed that her own rant would have to wait for now. Ginny continued, “And we wouldn’t even be here now if my ex-husband hadn’t done something monumentally stupid. I’ll be surprised if Andromeda doesn’t skin him from head to foot. She looked absolutely livid, and exactly like Bellatrix now that I think about it.” She shuddered.

“Dear, it does not do to call people names,” Mrs. Weasley interjected, although weakly, because she obviously thought the same thing. 

Howard Cho didn’t know what, exactly, they were talking about, but he was able to grasp the basics. “So you’re not dead,” he double-checked.

“No.”

“And you’ll be wanting your old job back then?” he asked, resigned,

“Naturally.”

“So………..how are you not dead, exactly?”

And Ginny Weasley Potter grinned, looking exactly like a mischievous school girl. “That’s what I’m here to tell you.”

&……&……&……&……&……&

The Reappearance of Ginny and Molly Weasley became an International Sensation.

The Daily Prophet sold out in a matter of hours. There was copious amounts of tears from the Weasleys and various, empathetic old ladies who read the story and quietly sobbed into their handkerchiefs, and no small amount of shouting from Harry and Ron.

“And so,” Ginny concluded, for probably the fiftieth time in front of the entire extended Weasley family that had gathered in the Burrow, “Eleanor” – the tiny, drab-haired woman waved from her spot over by the fireplace – “was able to catch us before we went in, and convinced us of the merits of her plan. She knew all about………..our certain abilities.”   
Here there was a demand for Ginny to reveal exactly what those were, especially from Harry, Hermione and George, which Mrs. Weasley silenced by entering the room with food, followed by Mr. Weasley who hadn’t let her out of his sight since he had arrived at the Ministry and seen her alive. “She had this potion which she poured down the throat of two of the Order who had captured Lily. Then she………disposed of them, and Mum and I……..changed the bodies a little bit.”

“Why?” Hermione asked, from her spot on the couch, where she was watching Ginny carefully. Ginny turned to her and raised an eyebrow in a silent question. “I mean why go to all that trouble?” Hermione clarified. “Why didn’t she just warn you about them knowing about the whole Line of Matrilineal Descent thing, and then you sneak in, rescue Lily and get away again? Why all this cloak and dagger nonsense?”

There was mild muttering among the Weasleys present as they all considered this point. Harry, who was holding tightly onto his daughter and was surrounded by both his sons, was once again reminded of how dangerous Hermione could be when she put her mind to it. While all the rest of them were just overjoyed that Ginny, Molly, and Lily were alive and safe, Hermione had put all the data she had accumulated together and arrived at the real question. Ginny turned back towards Eleanor to let her answer the question.

“Because I needed to infiltrate them,” Eleanor said, simply. “And because Ginny and Molly had no way of detecting the Warding system that they were using. They already knew that all three of us were there, so there was no possibility of escaping and coming back later, because by that time Lily would have been moved and they would have vanished and we would have had no way of tracking them. Likewise, they knew all of Ginny’s and Molly’s capabilities, but none of us knew what they were capable of doing, so a straight up fight would have ended up quite badly. So I took a gamble. I figured that if it could be arranged that Molly and Ginny ‘died’ in their attempt to rescue Lily, then in all the confusion I they could sneak out, and I could make my move to infiltrate their circle. Also, I would be in the prime position to track their movements and assess their capabilities to the extent that I could inform Ginny, Molly and Andromeda –“she waved at Professor Black, who was seated regally across from Hermione and Harry and was intermittently shooting Harry venomous looks, that he was trying his best to ignore – “and they could contrive to stumble upon the safe house where Lily was located and have her out in a matter of minutes.”

“It all worked out perfectly,” Ginny assured them. “We got Lily out in three days. Eleanor kept a watch on her the whole time and managed to keep her cover. Andromeda contacted Narcissa through Draco who – as you know – is the Best Arithmancer in the world, and she drew up several permutations of calculations in order to make our cover story that we had tracked their movements by mathematical proof found in their Apparation coordinates plausible, and then we took a couple of weeks to make sure that they weren’t coming after us, and to give Lily some time to…….process everything.” She shot a concerned look at her daughter, who snuggled closer to Harry.

Harry himself was watching Eleanor Montgomery suspiciously. “So you’re a spy?” he asked at last.

“At the moment,” she agreed readily enough. She was dressed in Wizard robes today, all black, like Snape would have worn. Although, it had to be admitted, slightly more form flattering than anything Snape, hopefully, would have considered wearing. Harry shuddered and put that thought away in his Things To Never Think About box. “I’m more along the lines of Wizard Relations,” Eleanor continued.

“What does that mean?” Hermione asked, still in that suspicious tone of voice which meant she would figure out this woman’s cunning plan or wait for her in a dark alley one night.

Eleanor examined her watch and frowned. “It means that I am a very busy person and can’t afford to waste time dilly-dallying with you people. I’m on a tight schedule and I have a hero speech to make this week, some memories to prod, and someone to bring back from the dead, so I’ll see you all later,” she declared dramatically, and made for the door.  
Since no one had been expecting this sort of statement, not even Hermione, they let her pass without a word. It was only when the door slammed in her wake that Harry asked, “Who’s she bringing back from the dead?”

&……&……&……&……&……&

The days that followed were some of the strangest that Harry could remember.

“Yes, but why would Narcissa Malfoy help her? She’s a muggle!” he remembered Ron shouting during one of their frequent rehashes of the whole thing.

“How did you not know about this whole women-empowerment old wives tale?!” Harry demanded instead, still sore that Ginny had gone off and had adventures and a power that the Dark Lord knew not when he hadn’t and didn’t. Oh wait.

Ron snorted. “Like Ginny ever told me anything, anyway. You were the one married to her.”

“And how come I didn’t find any sign of it in my research?” Hermione cried, outrage.

“Yeah!” Harry shouted.

“That’s right!” Ron agreed.

There was silence for a moment as they realized that there was nowhere to go in the conversation after this moment. Pansy, sitting on Ron’s other side and determinedly sipping red wine, snorted quietly. Hermione had ears like a hawk though and Harry watched her decided How To Approach The Enemy with something that was rapidly turning into amusement. If there was one good thing about all the confusion that seemed to surround his waking life at the moment, it was that Ginny’s and Molly’s death and………..rebirth as it were, had healed the rift between Ron and Hermione enough that Hermione could now stand to be in the same room as him. 

Now she just had to figure out how to be in the same room with Pansy Parkinson.

”Sooooo……..Parkinson,” she began after a moment. Ron and Harry pretended to be temporarily deaf.

Pansy turned towards Hermione and raised an eyebrow. She was looking especially elegant today, in a rich, shouting kind of way. Her robes were a deep violet, her hair was swept up with a silver clip and huge silver hoops hung from her ears. Her face was heavily made up, and she wore a deep red lipstick that went well with her dark coloring. Next to her   
Hermione looked rather dull. Her robes were a sensibly-cut brown color that almost matched her hair, which hung about her face in frizzy tendrils from wear it had escaped her French braid. There wasn’t a drop of makeup on her face, but there were dark circles under her eyes. Faint crows feet were becoming more and more visible each year, and she had definitely put on a couple of pounds.

Harry looked over at Ron’s pot belly and then down at his own body – still Auror fit but definitely with a certain thickness starting to set in.

Dammit, they were all getting old.

The only thing that was similar about the two women who were cautiously eyeing each other up was the snapping intelligence in their similar-colored eyes.

And then Hermione smiled, an ear-splitting smile of genuine amusement that reached her eyes. “So, Parkinson,” she began again. “What do you know about this whole maternal descent power thing?”

Pansy’s eyes had widened in surprise at Hermione’s smile, swiftly followed by an eyebrow rise at Hermione’s blunt question. “That’s not very Unspeakable of you,” she murmured, attempting to regain her equilibrium and put off Hermione until she had thought through her answer.

“Nothing?” Hermione probed relentlessly.

Pansy sighed and, Harry noticed with delight, still appeared off balance enough that she had given up all hope of trying to think through her answer. “I don’t know anything about it. Never even heard of it,” she explained. Her eye twitched a bit but she continued somewhat reluctantly at Hermione’s impatient hand motions. “But I’m sure that my grandmother does,” she finished.

Hermione whipped out her notebook and started scribbling madly. “What makes you think that?” she asked, abstractedly.

“She started getting all evasive on me when I told her about the Strickland Case, and she got positively green when we thought that Molly and Ginny were dead.”

Ron turned around and stared at his girlfriend. “You never told me that!”

Pansy shrugged. “I don’t tell you everything, Ronald.”

“What do you mean you ‘don’t tell me everything’?”

Pansy sighed, Harry groaned and Hermione tried to hide a not-so-discreet grin. Harry could read the ‘Serve you right’ on her face clear enough.

Time to get back to the office, he decided, signaling Hermione that they were heading out.

Once they were back they immediately fell into research mode. “What if it’s not some kind of conspiracy, Harry?” Hermione twirled her quill around and around her fingers as she thought. At last she stabbed it straight into Harry’s chest to get his attention.

“Ow!” He rubbed his chest dramatically, but Hermione ignored him.

Ginny had said that all she knew about the Lines of Matrilineal descent were what Molly had told her; that it was an old wives tale passed down from mother to daughter, and that it claimed that certain abilities were passed down in the blood, abilities that went beyond normal wizarding magic. Ginny said that the power was strengthened when different bloodlines merged, and that sometimes it was passed onto the matriarch of a family through marriage as well as blood, and that was why wizarding marriage ceremonies had a blood ceremony where the husband and wife shared their blood.

Hermione had been looking for a history book that spoke about Marriage Rites and bloodlines for days. She had even gone through the entire Hogwarts library, but she’d had no more luck than previous to discover something. All Ginny had been able to tell them was that Andromeda Black and Draco Malfoy had a suspicion that the murders and disappearances had something to do with bloodlines and blood magic traced through the old pureblood families.

It was not a lot to go on, and Hermione was obviously going out on wider and wider tangents in her quest for a workable hypothesis.

“What if it’s a serial killer instead? Like Verna half-joked the other day? What if Draco Malfoy is involved in it all, but only peripherally because she has something on him? What if she just used all those other people as patsies and has been running rings around us the whole time because she thinks that it’s funny? What if it’s ELEANOR MONTGOMERY?!”  
She was standing up from her chair, shouting, by the time she’d finished. Then she paused, narrowed her eyes and then sat back down in a huff. “But that wouldn’t explain how she’s leaving no trace elements at the crime scene, even if it does explain why there’s no magical signature at the crime scene,” she muttered. “Darn, I thought I’d had it there for a moment.”

Harry rummaged on his desk for a moment, looking for the preliminary case reports. After a fruitless couple of minutes he heaved a dramatic sigh and shoved every single paper from his desk onto the floor, where it joined random other piles of papers that he’d pushed onto the floor throughout the course of the week.

Hermione watched him critically for a moment. “You realize, Harry,” she began, conversationally, “that if you actually did your paperwork when you were supposed to, you wouldn’t have to come in every Saturday to sort through all the stuff you pushed onto the floor. Right?”

“No one likes a know-it-all, Hermione,” Harry told her, in the same tone of voice as John McClane had said, ‘Eat lead, Kincade.’

Hermione smirked.

Harry poked at a single sheet of paper hopefully. Overdue bill. Hastily he turned it back over, hoping Hermione hadn’t noticed. “You put Eleanor on the Wall of Web yet?” he asked, hoping to distract her.

“Ginny said to tell you, when you noticed that bill, that she paid it three weeks ago,” Hermione said, not even looking in his direction, but scribbling something down in the small, leather-bound notebook she carried with her everywhere.

Harry had tried to steal it a couple of times, but each time had ended either in disaster – once he’d ended up covered in slime and another he’d been sprayed in the face with women’s perfume – or he’d been unable to crack the code that Hermione’s quill automatically wrote in.

It really was Unendingly Trying to have friends who were Incredibly and Insufferably Intelligent.

“You mean the muggle with Malfoy?” Hermione asked him now.

Harry shot Hermione a quick look out of the corner of his eyes. He found it a bit strange that his muggle-born friend called Eleanor Montgomery ‘the muggle,’ like someone would call ET ‘the alien.’ He wasn’t going to bring it up to her though because it was all tangled up in Hermione’s Family Drama, which had to do with a dispute with her parents which had taken place about five years ago, and which had never Been Resolved. Harry suspected that it also had to do with the fact that he suspected the Unspeakables to be a bunch of ruddy Pure-Blood Supremacists and that they had given Hermione an Inferiority Complex as a result, but the one time he had tried to bring up this observation to Hermione she had all but eviscerated him. So he considered his Good Friend Duty finished for the time being.

“You’re doing it again,” Hermione murmured now, nose still buried in her book.

“Doing what?” Harry asked, affecting an exaggerated look of surprise. “I’m not doing anything.”

Hermione peered at him quizzically. “I don’t know, Harry Potter, whether you truly expect me to fall for that, or if you think you’re going to get out of a tongue lashing by playing endearingly stupid.”

Harry decided that now his only way out if he wanted to survive with all his fingers and toes, was to play Hopelessly Stupid.

Hermione narrowed her eyes again. “I’m not falling for it, Harry James Potter,” she scolded forcefully. She looked like she was only seconds away from prodding his chest and inflicting Irreparable Damage. Her eyes narrowed even further as this last thought crossed Harry’s mind, and then something clicked into place for him. The only problem with his theory was that there was no way that Hermione could have learned such a skill without him knowing. Could there? It just wasn’t possible. Harry and Hermione could speak to each other with limited Legilimancy, and only when they were within several feet of each other. Neither one of them had been able to make much headway with learning Occlumency.   
Hermione had told him that protecting your mind was much harder than actually sending your thoughts into another person’s mind – which is all Harry and Hermione had managed to accomplish. They hadn’t even managed to figure out how to read the thoughts of someone when they weren’t being projected to them. Of course, both of them had full-time jobs and families and various other issues to deal with, but the slow nature of their progress was really making Hermione, in particular, annoyed. Now Harry was wondering if Hermione had left him behind somehow and figured it out for herself.

Hermione smirked. It was a decidedly Slytherin expression, and one that she clearly must have copied from Malfoy. Or Snape. And Harry had shown her his memories of the Occlumency disaster almost a year ago now. Which meant that –

“Oh my God, Hermione!” he shouted. “You’re an –“

Hermione clamped a hand over his mouth so that his last words were a “mmhmm mmmmmhmmmm!” But that meant nothing to Harry because it proved that He Was Right.

“Stop thinking in Capitals like you were narrating the story of your own life to an admiring audience,” Hermione hissed in an undertone, finally removing her hand and then wiping it hurriedly on her robes. She shot Harry a vaguely reproachful glance. “A little discretion, Harry, would be nice.”

Harry moved silently over to his open office door. The hallways had long since gone dark and silent, with the only light being the small desk lamp that was still lit at Verna’s desk in Harry’s atrium. As Harry slowly stuck his right half through the doorway and angled it so he could see Verna’s desk while presenting as small a profile to her peripheral vision as possible, he looked for his Terror Of A Secretary.

Verna was sitting on her chair bolt upright, with a look of intense concentration on her face as she examined the far wall of Harry’s Domain which meant that she was Listening To Every Word. Harry turned back to Hermione, who was watching these movements with no little amusement and wearing an I Told You So expression on his face. Harry scowled.  
“I’m an Auror. We don’t do discretion. And you’re a dirty little spy!” he accused. “You’ve been reading my diary!” He could have sworn that he heard a choking noise coming from the direction of His Nosy Secretary.

Hermione didn’t even miss a beat. “Yes I did!” she said, loudly and triumphantly. “You thought you could distract me by getting a pink one with unicorns and rainbows on it, but I’m onto you Harry Potter! I knew you had a crush on Draco Malfoy! And your use of root vegetables is just obscene!”

Harry felt himself turning red and glared at his friend. “I do not have a crush on Draco Malfoy!” he hissed aggressively, sounding for all the world like someone in denial. He could hear it in his own voice and mentally groaned at the new thread of gossip that was sure to be all over the Ministry like wildfire by midday tomorrow morning. Verna’s chair toppled over in the atrium, and Hermione started turning red herself with the effort not to laugh.

“You have to admit,” she said, quieter now and speaking in short bursts of air in between her giggles “that if you did have a journal it would be filled with Draco Malfoy.”

“Yes, because he is suspicious!” Harry insisted, feeling like a broken record. Seriously, what was wrong with people? Every time he had insisted that Draco Malfoy was Up To Something he had indeed been neck deep in something nefarious. People wanted to see a sexual explanation in everything, even when all it was was good old-fashioned instincts about one’s Arch nemesis.

Hermione was still laughing. “I believe you,” she told him, “I just don’t think anyone else will.” She stood up and called, “Everything alright out there, Verna?”

There was an annoyed grunt from the atrium, and Harry and Hermione heard Verna righting her chair and settling back into it with a huff. Hermione grinned again. “Alright, I’m off, Harry.” She sent him a wave from the doorway, and the last words he heard her say before she disappeared from sight were, “Well, Harry, look at it this way. If Verna decides to tell the entire office about your little crush, at least it will provide some sort of amusement for these people instead of all the doom and gloom which has been floating around here for the last few months. Shake things up a bit. Change the mood. Who knows, maybe you’re love for Draco Malfoy will spark some knew theories. Break the case right open. Your love will save the world!”

Harry hurled his stuffed bear that said World’s Number One Hero at her back as she fled out the door.

&…&…&…&…&…&…&

Hermione wandered disconsolately around her house later that night, or rather even earlier that morning.

Maybe we’re looking for the wrong type of magic, she thought inanely, staring at her row of Terry Pratchett books and the Witches of Lancre series in particular. She walked off towards the kitchen, mind already trying to figure out what she still had in the fridge. But after she had looked through her rather paltry selection of food stuff for the tenth time, she realized that food was not going to help tonight. She had bigger things to worry about, more important decisions to make.

So she grabbed some crackers and cheese and went back to the office.

Hermione Granger had watched Harry Potter become the Chosen One, and an international hero. Books were written about him, history classes were taught that analyzed his life. His named would be remembered for centuries. She had watched her husband become a multi-millionaire and the boyfriend of the most famous pop star in the Wizarding World. She had watched recently as now Ginny and Molly were being hailed as heroes in their own right. Well Hermione Granger was tired of sitting on the sidelines and working from the shadows. She had no intention of being a footnote in Harry Potter’s biography or a side-note in history. She was going to be a hero in her own right.

She wasn’t sure how she was going to do this yet. She vaguely suspected that an old bearded guy was required at this point to impart wisdom to her, but she wasn’t sure how to go about finding one. Professor Flitwick didn’t have a beard, and neither did Arthur Weasley or her own father. So she was stuck on that one. Next she needed a cause. She had thought the Strickland Case would be a good cause, but she wasn’t making any headway with it, and Harry had taken point with it.

Although she did have a vaguely new direction to take their search, because she had come across an interesting conversation the other day that she had just happened to overhear in the canteen between Penelope Clearwater and Luna Lovegood. 

She should tell Harry about this, just in case it was connected.

She paused with one hand on her canister of floo powder. She realized she didn’t want to tell Harry about this. She felt mildly guilty about this, but only for a second. It wouldn’t do Harry any harm to figure out his own cases for once – well, the ones that required a bit of thought. She could just work on it from a different angle. Perhaps they would meet in the middle?

She sighed, angry at herself because she could never, ever lie to herself about her own motives. She took her hands off the floo powder and started to pace as she thought about her own wants and desires.

She had spent her entire life in Harry’s shadow, and that had never bothered her before. She was the smart one, the one who came up with the plans and the solutions and the clever loopholes. She’s the one who explained to the hero what he needed to know to defeat evil. And she had always been somewhat content with that role. More or less.  
I mean, sometimes she wished for a little more of the credit. A small statue in a library somewhere. Her name in a footnote that didn’t include Harry Potter and where she wasn’t an addendum.

I mean, was that really too much to ask?

“I want to be the hero for once,” Hermione admitted outloud, at last, quietly, and only to herself. She had paused in the very middle of her office, and was supremely glad that there was no one else around in this part of the Department of Mysteries to witness both her ambition and her mental breakdown.

A voice behind her cleared a throat loudly, causing Hermione to narrowly avoid having a heart attack and to trip in her haste turning back towards her open door.

Malfoy’s little muggle friend stood there. Hermione raised her chin and narrowed her eyes. The other woman was leaning against her doorframe with her arms crossed and was watching Hermione with a faintly knowing air about her. “So why don’t you?” she asked.

“Why don’t I what?” Hermione demanded.

“Become a hero,” the muggle said, like it was the simplest and most logical thing in the world.

Hermione stared at her, nonplussed, for a moment. “And how do you suggest I go about doing that?” she snapped, when she had recovered her powers of speech. She reached into her sleeve for her wand, fingers wrapping around the shaft as she contemplated Obliviating and Stupifying this muggle and then depositing her unconscious form in the Auror Department for Harry to find tomorrow.

The other woman shook her head. “My name is Eleanor,” she snapped.

“Are you reading my mind?!”Hermione cried, outraged, forgetting for a moment that this would have been impossible for a muggle. Her hand tightened even further around her wand. All it would take was one little spell, and this annoying woman, who seemed to have no purpose other than appearing at random moments and in random places, wouldn’t bother her anymore.

Eleanor snorted. “Of course not, don’t be a twit. I’m reading your face! And all I’m asking from you is a little respect.” She took a step forward before Hermione could even react and grabbed her hand, which was still hanging onto her wand, effectively immobilizing her. “And don’t even think about Obliviating me. All that does is piss me off.”

Hermione wrenched herself backwards, but took her hand out of her sleeve minus the wand. She really didn’t appreciate being called a twit. In fact, Hermione decided, as she took four steps back so that she would be able to sit on the edge of her desk, it was time for her to take control of this conversation.

The other woman was undoubtedly expecting Hermione to act immaturely, just like Hermione had – much to her dismay – acted the first time the muggle had met her in that café with Draco Malfoy. And suspicious, which is how Hermione had acted up to this point. But Hermione was a very gifted Unspeakable for her unique ability of being unpredictable. In the cutthroat world of the Department of Mysteries this ability had saved her life and career more than once. It had also been an invaluable ally out in the field and undercover. It had elicited information that no one had thought she could obtain. This muggle woman couldn’t know that because she was pushing Hermione in all the wrong buttons. And she had specifically attempted to get Hermione off balance during this entire conversation. If Hermione had been Harry or Ron or Ginny, or anyone else, this tactic would have worked.  
But Hermione had analyzed the course of this conversation and decided that it was boring, and she wouldn’t learn anything new from it.

So it was time for Hermione to sew a little bit of chaos into the proceedings.

“Won’t you come in and sit down?” she asked politely.

The Muggle started in surprise, raised an eyebrow, and then a slow smile spread across her plain features, turning her into a beauty for a moment. “Don’t mind if I do,” she said, sitting herself down with aplomb. 

Hermione mirrored her on the other side of her desk. “Lovely weather we’ve been having.”

“Yes, very lovely. Exceedingly warm for this time of year.”

“Indeed. Although I think we might get snow sooner than expected.”

“Do you think so?”

“Yes. Also, you’re a lying, dirty, scumbag,” Hermione said pleasantly.

“Am I? Well you’re a failure. You could never be a hero. You don’t have the balls?”

“Is that an Americanism?” Hermione’s eyes narrowed. “Are you American? That would explain your complete lack of respect for other people’s boundaries.”

“And the fact that you’re English explains why you don’t have the stones to get things done.”

“What things?” Hermione demanded suspiciously.

“Also my real name is Tatia Chernendov and I’m from the Ukraine.”

“What?”

“What?”

“Stop it.”

“Why don’t you stop it?”

“Oh my god, what are you, five?”

“I know, I look young, don’t I?” Eleanor said complacently, eyeing Hermione like the cat that had the canary. 

“So you’re a spy?” Hermione said, still trying to surprise the other woman with rapid-fire changes in topic.

“And you’re a failure,” Eleanor said cheerfully. “You could never be a hero. You can’t even solve this simple case.”

“Have you?!”

“Have you noticed what’s going on among the Unspeakables?”

Hermione paused, gritted her teeth, and then continued on, mirroring Eleanor’s cheerful tone. “Of course I have,” she said, sugar sweet.

“Such a shame, really.” Eleanor’s tone was mock sorrowful. 

“I agree,” Hermione said, having no idea what she was talking about.

“Someone really has to do something. Or Harry will have to step in. Poor boy’s so busy helping everyone. Or I will,” she mused.

“I have everything under control,” Hermione insisted. She couldn’t advertise her own ignorance with admitting that she was losing this round to a muggle. Oh the shame.

“Well, that’s nice then,” Eleanor said, brightly. She stood up to go. “Anyway, things to do, places to be. I just came to tell you that there’s going to be a bit of a spanner in the works thrown in tomorrow.”

“What does that mean?” Hermione asked, suspiciously. She tried to read Eleanor’s expression. “Who are you planning to resurrect?!”

Eleanor vanished out the doorway before Hermione could get around her desk. “You’re fighting spirit,” the other woman’s voice floated down the hallway. “Who ya gonna call…………….Ghostbusters!” And then she was gone.

Hermione stood before her desk blinking rapidly for a few seconds. “What the hell just happened?” she demanded of the world in general. After a few more blinks she realized that   
Eleanor had completely dominated the conversation, no matter how Hermione had tried to steer it. That woman was clearly a devious bastard of the first order, and should be watched with all conceivable caution. And Hermione still had no idea what the other woman had been after. All that rot about…………..something suspicious going on among the Unspeakables? Just like Hermione had vaguely overheard being discussed between Penelope and Luna. And which she had not noticed until then. And which could need a hero?

“Merlin’s balls,” she swore, and tore off down the hallway, to break into the Head Unspeakable’s Office.

&……&……&……&……&

Somewhere down the pristine pale-green hallway on the second floor at WZ Pharmaceuticals, someone was playing Burn the Wand at Both Ends on the Wizarding Wireless, and if Ginny had to hear that song one more time she was really going to…….do something violent. 

She wasn’t sure what exactly, but it was definitely going to start with at least a Bat Bogey Hex.

And if she happened to run into Harry on the way, she was going to send one in his direction as well. That man had been completely impossible to live in the vicinity of these past few days. He’d been harassing her constantly for anything she could remember, and when he wasn’t do that, he was nagging her about needlessly putting herself in danger, maybe getting back together to try and repair their marriage, and sulking that she hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him about the strange powers she had inherited from both the Weasley and the Potter lines.

Honestly, he was so persistent that she was mildly tempted to give up just to make him stop.

Ginny Weasley Potter – who was still waiting for her divorce papers to be finalized – had decided that this was the day that she was going to finally have it out with her brother, Ron. She had a mind for a mid-life career change……..well, another one. Because she was re-inventing herself dammit. And because she had no intention whatsoever in involving herself in whatever latest debacle Harry and Hermione had involved themselves in.

She could sense that the Wizarding World was about to change. That Eleanor woman was a strange force of nature, and if Andromeda Black and Draco Malfoy’s mysterious words and dark predictions about a partner were true, well then things were going to be……chaotic for a while. And Ginny was going to be far away from it as possible. Ron would help   
her. He had thrived on his own, without taking on the woes and burdens of the Wizarding World alongside Harry.

And if his partner Blaise Zabini gave her a hard time about it, well Ginny Weasley would have a Bat Bogey Hex ready for him too.

&……&……&……&……&……&

The call came into the Aurors Department at 11 the next morning; the Weasley’s house was on fire.

Harry and half the Department Apparated there to find the entire Weasley family standing on the front lawn in various states of bemusement. The house was just sitting there, in the middle of the flames, but not burning. The Aurors snapped into action and for the next 45 minutes attempted in vain to put out the flames. Nothing worked. It merely caused them to spread.

When Harry saw a familiar figure walking down the lane in their direction, amongst the various neighbors that had been called out due to curiosity, he called a halt to the others.  
The woman called Eleanor stopped, stared at Harry and then at the house behind him that was blatantly on fire. Her eyes widened until she looked like a child – or a deer caught in the headlights. “I was just walking by,” she assured him.

Harry didn’t know whether to snort or to arrest her on general principles. Really, her kind of behavior was Not Done. “What are you really doing here,” he demanded, reaching out and grabbing her arm to stop her simply walking away from him.

Eleanor looked down at his arm and then back up into his face. Then her own features screwed up into a clearly false terrified expression. “Sexual Harassment!” she yelled at the top of her voice, causing every Auror in the vicinity, as well as curious bystanders, to turn around and stare. 

I’m being subjected to sexual harassment!” she howled again. “Oh, is there no one to save me?!” she declared dramatically. Harry dropped her arm and took several rapid steps backwards. Any declaration of sexual harassment was inevitably followed by hours and hours of interdepartmental awareness meetings and re-education classes.  
It was a terrible, terrible punishment and Harry didn’t want to be known as the person who had caused the Department to be put on The List.

Eleanor smirked at him, neatly sidestepped him, and then continued onwards. 

Straight towards the Weasley house.

No one thought she was actually going to walk into the flames. At the very last second they were sure that she was going to turn back, but no one could turn away just in case she did walk into the flames. The moment she reached the flames, which were turning blue and green from the heat, Harry suspected, she turned back towards the assembled Aurors and Weasleys. “Are you coming?” she asked, playfully. 

And then she vanished into the fire.

There was an audible gasp from about half the onlookers. Harry rushed over, casting spells for the magical signature of Apparation, or any other sign of her using or utilizing magic. Instead, on the very boundaries of the fire, he found a large amount of floo powder. Harry paused a moment, studying the flames critically. He felt Romilda and Ron come up on either side of him, also watching. At last he stuck his left hand directly into the flames, ignoring Ron’s shot of warning. His arm went straight through and Harry felt cool, dry air on the other side. He moved his hand around a bit more until it touched smooth stone.

Finally, taking a deep breath, he moved his whole body into the flames, knowing that the Weasleys and his Aurors would follow him.

He found himself in the middle of the Ministry, standing before the Fountain of Heroes and a statue of himself. His lips curled in disgust.

Eleanor Montgomery was standing in the middle of the Ministry Atrium, surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of Ministry workers. Hermione was one of them. As was Draco Malfoy. There was a hubbub of voices as the Weasleys and the various Aurors were added to the mix, but she simply waited them out. At last, the quieted and waited to hear what she would say. 

Harry wondered why no one thought to arrest her and question her. Why did they all just wait for her to speak? What power did she hold over all of them?

He decided it must be because Eleanor Montgomery did not play by the accepted rules. She wasn’t awed by Wizards or scared. She didn’t obey the authorities, or even the accepted laws of physics. She didn’t have any motive, or even a home-country. She was this……..force who came out of nowhere and was messing with things. She had saved Ginny and Molly when they should have died. She was in contact with Draco Malfoy and in cahoots with him over Merlin knew what, and now she was standing in the Ministry Foyer about to make an announcement.

Harry had the sinking suspicion that she was about to unleash a cat from the bag that wasn’t going to be put back in again. Everything was about to change. He wished he was far away.

“Everything is about to change!” Eleanor said, winking at Harry. 

Oh God, he thought.

“I am here to tell you that you have lost your way!” she continued. “You have become placid and dull, mired in your rules and refusing to look beyond the narrow boundaries you have set for yourself. Voldemort did not teach you anything, for you placed everything your learned fighting him back in the box from which it came. Well, you’re not going to be able to put this back into a box. I have brought a bit of the past with me, to show you what was lost!”

She waved her hands back towards the fireplace from which she had exited.

Fred Weasley – not looking a day older than nineteen – stepped out of one of the green, glowing fireplaces behind her.

There was dead silence in the Atrium. No one moved. No one even thought. The only sound was that of hundreds of people collectively holding their breaths. Event he fires died down, and the steady flow of the fountain with the overly large statue of Harry Potter himself, seemed muted. Fred saw it and raised an eyebrow, looking like he very much wanted to make a snarky comment.

But he didn’t. Instead he looked around at all the people gathered there before him, cataloging the effects that twenty plus years had had on them.

Finally George whispered, “That’s impossible.”

Eleanor shook her head, brown hair swirling around her like a halo and a down-right evil grin on her face. “I can do anything I want,” she claimed, waving at the returned-to-life Fred by her side.

And from that moment on the rumor mill that was the Wizarding World firmly maintained that Eleanor Montgmery, Muggle, Potetially American, could alter the laws of life, death and taxes with just a wave of her – seldom manicured – hand.

No matter what Harry claimed to the contrary.

&…...&…..&……&……&……&

End Note: Were you surprised that Fred was the one that came through the flames? Please review and tell me what you think.


	11. Draco Acquires Some Minions

Draco Malfoy and the Strickland Case  
Chapter Eleven  
Draco Acquires Some Minions and Hermione Discovers Nefarious Schemes  
Oh,  
And Fred Weasley’s Back From the Dead

 

Disclaimer: I own nothing from the Harry Potter Universe, and any similarities to other stories or characters are purely coincidental. I own only Eleanor Montgomery. And the fact that Fred’s no longer dead. Please review, and thank you for reading!

&…..&……&……&……&……&

The atrium at the Ministry for Magic was so quiet you could have heard someone’s stomach growl. Fred was quite sure that he heard someone mumble, “Merlin’s Beard,” that sounded a lot like Hermione, but he couldn’t figure out where her voice was coming from.

Everyone was staring at him.

After a moment, when it had gotten really awkward, Fred essayed a beaming smile to try and break the tension. Someone in the crowd whimpered in terror. He dropped the smile. Scratched the back of his head.

Well, that decided it. There was only one thing for it.

Fred Weasley, still seventeen, nevertheless knew how to deal with the spotlight. He could feel George watching him – an old-looking George with a business suit on, they would have to talk about that later – and he didn’t want to let the old boy down. He’d been gone for decades. He had a reputation to maintain. He took a step towards everyone and opened his arms wide.

He was wearing bright magenta robes and blessed his foresight because now everyone would most certainly remember this moment. The garish color, clashing with his hair, would sear the image into their retinas. He kind of thought that Dumbledore would have been proud. “Greetings Mortals!” he boomed. “I come from a far and distant planet to bring wisdom and peace to you plebian tits!”

There was a further silence, as though everyone was holding their breath because they had no idea how to react to this, when he distinctly heard Draco Malfoy’s voice say, “Oh, I like him.” Fred’s head whipped around and saw an older Malfoy dressed in elegant robes of blue-grey watching him with no little amusement in his usually cold grey gaze. “Malfoy,” he said, jovially. “Nice receding hairline. Remind me to mock you for it later.” He grinned.

Malfoy scowled, Hermione giggled, Ellie – still standing to one side of him – snorted, and Malcolm Creevey – the third Creevey brother who no one ever seemed to talk about because he had been sorted into Hufflepuff – took a picture. And then pandemonium ensued.

There was a roar of noise as cameras went off, people started shouting, and Fred found himself in the embrace of his Mother, who kept trying to speak but always found herself too overcome by sobs of joy to get any words out. “Mum!” he was able to get out several moments later sounding like a strangled goose – he was being blinded by the camera flashes. “You’re killing me! I’m dying! Again!”

She released him hurriedly only to be replaced by his father and Ginny, and then by the entire family. “You’re all looking old,” he informed them bluntly, glancing from face to face to take in the differences. “Percy, you’re getting fat. Cut back on the ham,” he told his older brother, who was crying, laughing and cleaning his spectacles at the same time. Nieces and nephews were shoved forwards for him to meet, and swarms of strangers were sticking their hands in, waving for attention, while others just hung around to watch. Rita Skeeter was in one corner of the room, trying to get a good view of the proceedings and with her Quick-Quotes Quill on prominent display and speeding over the page trying to get down as many words as possible.

Harry and a Teddy Lupin who was now older than him, came forwards at the end – while the other Aurors were attempting to herd everyone else about their business – to say hello. “You haven’t seen your little partner-in-crime have you?” Harry demanded first thing, vigorously shaking his hand and then slapping him on the back at the same time. Fred looked around and noticed that Ellie was gone. He shook his head at Harry and watched the other man massaged his temples tiredly. Harry Potter was slightly greying and had crow’s feet next to his eyes.

Dumbledore’s toenails, everyone was getting old.

Fred puffed out his chest as he realized he still looked good.

“You’ll have to come by the Auror Department to give a statement,” Harry was saying but everyone simply ignored him, grabbing Fred away and demanding answers, promising food and his old bedroom at the Burrow, and whisked him away……..

“Everyone’s gone completely bonkers,” Harry said, to the universe at large, as he watched even the indomitable Professor McGonagall swipe away a tear as she waved at Fred.

……………and right to George.

Although there were slightly less people around the Fountain than had been there ten minutes ago, there was still a sizable crowd, and people around the edges were going about their business, so it wasn’t silent, but the area surround Fred and George was a bubble of quiet as the twins stared at one another. George had stayed out of the chaos surrounding his returned-to-life other half. He had watched, numb and disbelieving as everyone screamed and shouted and cried, barely registering them because all he could think about was how young Fred looked, as though he hadn’t aged a day. All he could see was his brother’s face, that last he had seen bloody and bruised and lifeless, now vibrant and alive.

There was anger, deep inside him, that was waiting to get out. There was fear too; as though at any moment he would wake up from this vivid scene and realize that everything was just a dream.

And then Fred was standing before him, watching him with concern and faint mischief in his gaze. George had no idea what could possibly be funny about all this. “What are you laughing at,” he said, not realizing that his stern tone – no longer surprising to the rest of the family – would shock the twin who had last seen him joking around.

“Your face,” Fred said cheerfully. “You look like someone buggered your favorite sheep.” George narrowed his eyes, but Fred merely grinned wider. “Now you look constipated,” he informed his brother helpfully.

Angelina came up and took George’s hand in hers. Fred’s eyes widened. “You scored with Angelina, mate?” Fred looked around for his namesake. “Mmm hmm, should have known!” he crowed. “I am so proud of you, brother.” George’s face still remained forbidding. Fred’s grin turned sly. “You remember that time when we placed wagers on –“

George was across the space in two strides, clamping his hand firmly over Fred’s mouth. Angelina was watching them both with suspicion. 

“You bastard!” George yelled.

“George!” snapped Mrs. Weasley.

“Everyone smile!” yelled Rita Skeeter, and that’s the picture that ended up on the front page of the Daily Prophet.

&……&……&……&……&……&

Well, Draco could not deny it. It had been an interesting morning. The dead had been risen, chaos had ensued, and Ellie was to blame.

Actually, on second thought, that really wasn’t a surprise where she was concerned. As Draco watched the Weasley flail around like the ill-bred sots that they were, all the while the Press took pictures of them and people laughed and cry like they were somehow royalty, Draco edged around the crowd, grabbed ahold of Ellie and dragged her off over to the Elevators, where he shoved her in before him and then pressed the button for the Subbasement.

He straightened his robes and ignored her knowing grin. “When you firecalled me this morning and told me to gather as many people as possible – particularly Weasleys – in the atrium by midmorning, I had no idea this would be the result,” he informed her stiffly. 

“Oh, tell me you’re not pleased.”

“Why on Dumbledore’s beard would I care about Fred Weasley’s resurrection? Which, by the way, most likely involved a time turner and your nefarious brain.” He raised his chin haughtily. How dare this…..this……Eleanor……tell him what he felt or did not feel. Malfoys were not pleased by Weasleys being happy.

Ellie rolled her eyes. “For the love of Pete,” she snapped, her flawless English accent for the moment deserting her and other intonations taking its place. “Draco Malfoy, if you’re telling me that the good Lord didn’t give you more of brain than you had two decades ago then we are going to have serious problems.”

Draco narrowed his eyes and was about to speak again when the Elevator pinged. “Subbasement Level,” the voice said blandly. “Home to the Department of Mysteries and the Archives and Redundant Paperwork Division.”

Ellie’s grin would have made a shark proud. “Ahh, here we are,” she drawled, shashaying out of the elevator, down the narrow, winding hallways and to the old, wood door with the peeling plaque that read Archives.

Draco stalked after her.

She waited until he unlocked the door with a wordless spell, before following him into the dimly-lit, cramped space overflowing with parchment and filing cabinets that comprised the Archives and Redundant Paperwork Division. There was one steel desk wedged into a corner of the room which contained two chairs. Ellie sat down in one and put her feet up on the other.

Draco narrowed his eyes at her. “Tea?” he inquired, aggressively.

“Love some,” Ellie smiled, even wider so that all her teeth were exposed. Draco growled in annoyance, waved his hand at the small shelf where the tea things were kept, and a moment later Ellie caught a piping hot cup of earl grey in a mug that read – in fading letters – World’s Best Dad. For a second Draco thought he saw her smile falter, but then it was back. “My favorite,” she crowed. “You remembered. How sweet.”

Draco shook his head, suddenly tired. He had forgot how dealing with Ellie was like dealing with the Minister for Magic – stressful and headache inducing – and perched himself on the corner of his own desk.

“By rights, I should magic your arse off my chairs, but I just can’t be bothered for the moment.”

Ellie took a sip of tea, gagged violently at how hot it was, placed the cup on the desk, and hopped around in extended drama. “I’m dying,” she declared. “You’re trying to kill me, Draco Malfoy! Was this your insidious plot?! Poison me with hot tea?! Burn me from the inside out! After all I have done for you!” She coughed some more. “Montgomery is down. Send back up!”

Draco rolled his eyes.

An owl flew in from Draco’s magicked window from one of the other Departments. He hauled himself off his desk, took the message, and dodged the bird who always took a peck at him in the hopes of acquiring a finger. Draco didn’t know its real name, but he’d named it Pansy, after the most violent person he knew. Vicious little blighter. As usual Potter’s messages made him want to throttle the bastard. Malfoy, it read, I know you have the Muggle. Bring her up to the Aurors IMMEDIATELY. We need to have words. 

The arrogant wanker hadn’t even bothered to sign it.

Draco snorted and wandlessly burned the message. Like he was going to listen to Harry Potter. He’d have words with The Chosen One if he bothered to show his ugly mug down here again.

Ellie, having apparently gotten over her burned tongue and imminent death, observed, “A couple days ago and you would have obeyed that summons.” She had obviously recognized Draco’s mulish facial expression.

Draco gazed at the brown-haired woman for a moment before walking back over to his desk. He knocked Ellie’s feet off one of his chairs and sat down before rifling through the paperwork that covered his workspace. “Not where you are concerned, I wouldn’t,” he informed her, and then pretended that he didn’t see her sudden, surprised grin.

There was silence for a few moments. Draco knew that Ellie was leading up to something, and figured that whatever it was, it would get him more answers to whatever she was playing at, then he would by just attempting to interrogate her. Of course, if it came down to it, he could always just shove some Veritaserum down her throat. He still had a bit left over at the manor that the Ministry hadn’t acquired yet during their frequent raids. His mother was an absolute genius at secreting things away that not even the most assiduous Cursebreakers and nosy busybodies could find.

For now though, he would play nice.

“Well, at least your wandless skills have improved dramatically. He would be pleased.”

Draco started. He refused to let her see what those words meant to him. “Indeed?” He raised an eyebrow but otherwise made no other facial tick.

Ellie’s voice took on a tone of affected nonchalance and she gazed at him from the corner of her eye to observe his reactions closely. For all that she pretended she was great at everything, she had never felt comfortable manipulating people. She was told that this was her biggest liability, and was mildly annoyed by the opinion that she wasn’t good at everything; even if she did know that she was atrocious at anything to do with cars, was absolute rubbish at foreign languages – although she did have a knack for accents – and was beyond belief bad at cooking. She was so bad at it that this carried right over into Chemistry and – she was convinced if she ever tried it – Potions as well.

But this…….this was in the service of a higher power. This was her sworn duty to accomplish in the service of a friend. And for society of course. Because look at the state of this place. The Wizarding World was stagnant and divided. It was as though everyone was walking through life in a haze. A fog had settled on everyone. Most likely this is what happened after a society went through two wars within a single generation, but that was not an excuse anymore. A new generation had been born and was growing up, yet everything remained the same. Slytherins were ostracized. The families who had supported the Dark Lord were unable to raise their children free of prejudice. The shadow of lose and sadness still hung upon all those who had said good-bye to loved ones.

And no one had learned their lesson.

The Ministry was as corrupt as ever. House prejudices still dictated alliances even well into old age. There was no growth, no……..flowering of the spirit? No, that sounded stupid, even in her own head.

But she had decided that what was needed………..was a little competition of the most fun sort. And she knew just how to bring it about. It just required a slight nudge in the right direction………

“Yes, they have,” she said, decidedly. “Exponentially.” Pause. “It’s a shame that they’re wasted down here in this……..office.” She sniffed like she had discovered a vile smell. Draco merely sighed without looking at her.

“Yes, well, that’s apparently my lot in life. Drudgery.”

“Yes,” Ellie agreed. “Apparently.”

Draco looked up then, his eyes suspicious. “What does that mean?”

Ellie picked up a paper and inspected it thoroughly. She put it back down. Something about office supplies. Not what she was looking for. She pulled out a paper from the middle of one of the towering stacks, causing a minor avalanche. From the depths of a pile of paperwork she replied. “I mean that that is apparently what you have decided your life will be. Drudgery,” she repeated, helpfully, spitting out paper and shaking them out of her dress. She was the type of woman who wore dresses on her day off; practical, sensible dresses, with warm leggings underneath. Unless it was summer, when she wore three-quarter leggings.

“I have decided nothing,” Draco informed her shortly, lowering his head once again to scribble something – no doubt scathing – on a piece of parchment. “The world decides, and it decided long ago that I was nothing but a Malfoy, with a Dark Mark on my arm, and thus was good for nothing but filing paperwork.”

Ellie narrowed her eyes. He was being deliberately obtuse. This was more difficult than anticipated. She spat out a small memo and shook out some more random bits of paper from her hair. She waded her way over to one of the filing cabinets and attempted to open it. Of course it was jammed. She put her back into it. After a few moments of fruitless banging and mild cursing she conceded defeat. She kicked the thing moodily before turning back to see Draco staring at her with mild derision. “Don’t you have something in here about Chief Warlock Grapeworth’s financial statements?” 

“Yes.” Draco slowly put down his quill and came to stand beside her. “Why are you asking?”

“Haven’t you ever wondered why he has a separate account that can be traced to a small dwelling in Wales? I mean, I would wonder that, if I were you. I would wonder why, every month, a certain sum from his vast income – a sum that’s barely noticeable, and which never seems to make it into the first report, but only in the amended second one, like he conveniently forgot about it every time – goes to that household once a year.” She smiled hopefully.

Draco was inspecting her blankly, arms folded. After a moment he walked over to a different cabinet, waved his hand over it and, when it opened, pulled out a rather hefty file. After glancing through it quickly, attempting to verify this rather strange fact that Ellie had presented him with, he closed it and looked back at his friend, who was doing her very best to look innocent and non-threatening, and not as if she was manipulating him at all. “Yes, that’s suspicious. What of it?”

“Our mutual friend found out about it. He’s been doing some digging on Ministry employees. He gets bored easily. You know how he is. I told him to take up a hobby. Like knitting. But he doesn’t listen to me. No one ever does,” she declared melodramatically.

“Why would he be doing that?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Ellie said, disingenuously. “Leverage? Blackmail? A man who leaves his secrets out in the open like this deserves all the blackmail that comes his way.” She went and took the file from Draco’s hands. “Or so I have been told.”

“Yes, I suppose.”

“Did you know that the Minister is carrying on an affair with Celestina Warbeck?” Ellie asked out of the blue.

“What?” Draco’s eyes widened at this piece of information. 

“That’s right.” Ellie grinned. “And he doesn’t want everyone to know now that she’s gotten fat, and the only person who still listens to her music is Mrs. Weasley.”

“It would definitely damage his popularity,” Draco mused.

“The possibilities are endless,” Ellie agreed. “And all you would need is some leverage. It’s a shame you’re all alone down here.” She plopped down are her chair with an aggrieved expression. “It’s a shame about all of it, really. I just don’t understand why he even wants to come back. I mean look at the state of things! And I’m not just talking about this whole Disappearing People thing.” She folded her arms.

Draco slowly walked back to his desk and placed the file on top of it. “What are you talking about, then?” There was a contemplation to his words that bespoke deep thought. 

Good. It was about time he started using his brain.

“I’m talking about…….” Ellie sighed again. “You know who I ran into the other day?” she asked, seemingly at random. Draco shrugged. “Pansy. She’s doing quite well for herself.”

“Agreed,” Draco said, shortly. He didn’t sound particularly pleased by this fact. 

“Well, good for her, I say,” Ellie continued, as if she hadn’t heard him. “But why isn’t anyone else doing well among your group save Blaise Zabini? I mean, what’s up with that? You all come from money and connections, yet Tracy Davis works as an Unspeakable and makes a mere pittance. The same with Daphne Greengrass. You work……down here. And you don’t even make enough to live on. Goyle is slaving away in the laboratory of some Potions Master in the Experimental Division and Theodore Nott works as a janitor.”

Ellie stood up to pace.

“And that’s just the Slytherins! Did you know that Lavender Brown works as a Social Aid here? Apparently, she can’t relocate any of the Muggle-Born children, or those born with an ancestor who’s from a different magical species. She is blocked at every turn and the children suffer. I mean, why was the War even fought if stuff like this still goes on?! And he wants to come back. Something has to be done,” she mimicked. “As if he has any friends here! As if he even knows anyone with grievances who would even spend half a second listening to him before they cursed him!”

She slammed her fists down on the table.

“But he says the possibilities are endless. Everyone’s corrupt. You just have to know how to exploit them,” she mimicked again. “Frankly I just think he thinks he could run this country better than Shacklebolt and the current Ministry.”

“Well,” Draco muttered. “Anyone could do that. Wouldn’t be hard.”

Ellie snorted, stalking off back towards the door. “Sure,” she agreed, making sure her tone said the exact opposite. “Even you, Draco.” She shook her head. “It’s folly. ‘Concentrate on advancing yourself. Don’t take on big dreams,’ I told him. Sure, it might be fun, and there’s all the leverage you would need down in the Archives Department, but would it really be worth the stress? Sure, you could leave your name in history. Win respect. And power. But would it really be worth all the people trying to kill you?”

“People are already trying to kill me,” Draco muttered.

“See, exactly!” Ellie cried, mistaking his meaning deliberately. “That’s why you keep your head down. You help me solve this Strickland Case, and we’ll see how everything turns out.”

“I know exactly how it will turn out,” Draco disagreed bitterly. “I’ll get a pat on the head, no one’s opinion of me will change, and I’ll still be stuck down here.”

“Well, out of sight, out of mind,” Ellie said. “You do your work, and you don’t make a scene. That makes you easy to ignore.”

Draco looked like he wanted to argue that point, but after a moment he gave up, although not without stabbing his quill so hard into the parchment that he snapped the tip. He stared at the ink that spread over his hands like blood. “You ever find it weird that the Wizarding World is still using quills and ink and parchment when there are such wonderful things as fountain pens?” he mused.

Ellie opened the door. “Never mind about all of it, Draco,” she called back. “Just stay out of trouble, Draco! I’ll see you in a couple of days at the Manor. I need another conversation with your mother!” Then she made sure to slam the door on her way out. She needed something loud and final to remind Draco of exactly where he was. She felt like cackling all the way to the elevator. And everyone said she wasn’t a manipulative bastard, well take that! She was a friggin’ genius.

&……&……&……&……&……&

Draco went home that night in a bad mood. It was made worse by the nervous presence of his mother, who had spent many of the past days attempting to revamp the Manor, and bring it into the modern era, in order to please their upcoming guest. Draco didn’t think he would care, or that he would have anything by scorn to heap upon Draco himself.  
His mother’s uptight behavior caused him to forgo dinner entirely – no great lose there, the only House Elf they had been left by the grace of the Ministry was a truly atrocious chef. “Minny…….this is despicable,” he informed her, haughtily, but she only sighed, and looked mildly regretful. 

“Apologies, Master Draco, but if you is thinking you can do any better, then by all means you is welcome to try.”

The nerve of these creatures. Seriously. Draco sniffed and retreated to the library. His entire life was run by women, it really was intolerable. Speaking of……..”Ellie’s coming over tomorrow night!” he yelled down the hallway to his mother, before vanishing into the rows of books. “Maybe she’ll finally tell us what the hell she’s up to infiltrating that group, and just what the hell she’s up to in general,” he muttered.

Malfoy Manor was farther to the north than almost anyone – save for the Aurors – knew. As such, it was prone to experiencing earlier winters than anywhere in the Isles save for the Scottish Highlands, and Hogwarts. Draco grabbed his favorite blanket and the book he was reading on 11th century Ministers for Magic and ensconced himself in the window seat, watching the quiet snow drift down from low-lying, dark clouds. Everything was peaceful here; quiet and calm and lovely.

And dull. Draco snapped his book closed again with a growl. It was all so very, very boring. He had been living the exact same way for more years than he could count; just him and his mother and Minny. His job was dull and empty, and his life was dull and empty. He tapped restless fingers on top of his book, remembering Ellie’s words from earlier that day.

At last he slid off the window seat and made his way over to one of the great fireplaces that encircled the Manor Library on three sides. He threw in a handful of floo powder and called out the name of Zabini’s residence. Luckily the workaholic bastard was in. Blaise Zabini was still a fine specimen of a man, even Draco had to grudgingly admit that. His dark skin was smooth and unwrinkled, his eyes were bright and his hair was still a sleek, dark black. It was no wonder that he was frequently pictured in Witch Weekly. Draco was overly conscious of his own receding hairline, and raise his chin haughtily to compensate. He was a Malfoy, by Merlin!

“Blaise,” he greeted his fellow schoolmate regally.

Blaise grinned with genuine pleasure. “Draco!” he yelled.

Draco winced. “How are you doing, Blaise?” he asked, increasing the severity in his tone to remind the other to maintain at least a semblance of propriety. “How is your business?” As usual, his admonishments had not the least effect. 

“Business is booming! Couldn’t be better. I’m just racking in the dough!” 

“What does that even mean, Blaise?” Draco asked, attempting to hold onto his temper. Really, why was he always surrounded by such boorish……..nitwits?

“It means I’m still filthy rich, old bean! And considering my mother finally kicked the bucket last year, and I am just rolling in galleons!”

“Yeah? Well you appear to be the only one,” Draco snapped.

That sobered Blaise, but only a little bit. “And Pansy,” he reminded Draco.

Draco about snapped at the other man, but then a stray thought came to him; a wonderful, utterly devious and original thought. What if…….. “Yes…..” he mused, “and Pansy.”  
Blaise knew that look, from days of old, but he had never seen it on this Draco’s face. He thought it had been lost with the defeat of the Dark Lord, and the day Slytherin House was forever reviled in the public eye. The reappearance of the old Draco Malfoy caused him to remain silent while the other man finished the train of thought he had obviously   
hopped upon.

“How many of our former class are you still in contact with, Blaise?” Draco asked, after a moment.

Blaise looked mildly perplexed by this question. “Why, all of them, Draco. You put me in charge of networking, remember? Back when we hatched that scheme involving the dragons, your father’s spare staff and Dumbledore’s Pensieve?”

“Oh yes, how could I forget?” And although Draco honestly looked surprised, there was a gleam in his eye that said the surprise was a welcome one. There was a tilt to his chin and a glint in those cold, grey eyes that said that the heir to the Malfoy Family was back in business. Blaise hurriedly tried to hide his glee. It never went well if Draco thought you were manipulating him; for one thing it meant that you were smarter than him, and Draco liked to believe that he was the smartest person in any room.

Unless he was in a room with Hermione Granger.

Harry Potter always managed to get under his skin as well.

Or his father. Safely dead. Blaise didn’t even attempt to try and feel bad about that. Lucius Malfoy may have been a doting father, but he was a pretty crap human being.

Or his mother.

Or Professor Snape for that matter. Here Blaise’s pang of regret was genuine. Severus Snape had been many things, but he’d been one hell of a protector of this world, and a brilliant, devious bastard to boot. Slytherins always appreciated the devious ones. 

It was why the Dark Lord lost the respect of almost every Slytherin by the end of the war; the man was about as subtle as an anvil. Much more Gryffindor than Slytherin, all things told.

Really, there were a large number of people who gave Draco an inferiority complex. Blaise smiled complacently. As long as he didn’t have to do it and incur the wrath of Malfoy, all was right with the world. And although he was now attempting to build up Draco’s self-esteem, it wouldn’t hurt at all to have people on reserve who could take him down a peg or two. Should the occasion arise of course.

Draco could feel gears grinding in his mind, shifting off dust from long disuse in the recesses of his devious mind. He felt like cackling but thought that might be overdoing it a bit. He wondered if saying, I have a cunning plan, counted as terribly obvious, but then decided he didn’t care and said it anyway.

“Blaise!” he snapped, and was gratified when his newly acquired minion physically jumped and attempted to move to attention as much as was possible with just his head sticking through the fireplace.

“Yes, Draco?”

Draco resisted the temptation to tell the other he was now to be addressed only as Supreme Commander. Perhaps it was too soon for such a step? He only had one minion after all.   
Ok, put off acquisition of glorious title for a later date, Draco made a mental note. “We have work to do,” he said, instead.

“Work?”

Draco glared. Was his minion being deliberately obtuse? “Yes, Blaise, work! You know, that thing you no longer remember how to do because you are some hoity-toity businessman who merely rests upon his laurels these days?” Draco was all mock sweetness, but Blaise knew his leader well enough to realize that dark depths lay below, and he wisely decided to remain silent. “Well,” Draco continued after a moment, mildly disappointed that Blaise wasn’t giving him more ammunition, “we are no longer going to do that. We’ve been idle for far too long. Something has to be done!”

“Yes,” Blaise agreed, amiably, “something has to be done.”

“Revolution!” Draco cried.

“Equality for all,” Blaise decided to add to this statement.

“Justice and tolerance!” Draco screamed.

“We have been abused for far too long!” Blaise shouted, still having no idea what Draco was going on about, but trying to one up him anyway.

“AND THE RISE OF SLYTHERIN HOUSE!” Draco howled.

There was an awkward silence. “Wait, what?” Blaise asked. He stared at his commander in mild suspicion. 

“I mean, and end to Ministry oppression. Did you know that Lavender Brown is still an entry-level social aid because her opinions are contrary to Ministry policy?”

“Who in the name of Morgana and Merlin is Lavender Brown?” Blaise demanded.

Draco had forgotten that no one else at the Slytherin table had made such an extensive study of the Gryffindor table as he had. Purely in the name of reconnoitering his enemy of course. Arch nemesis and all. I mean, how many people had an arch nemesis? He had just been being conscientious was all. It wasn’t his fault he remembered all the information he had discovered even now. Besides, how many people had even been in their year? How could Blaise not know who Lavender Brown was? Was the man a moron? Draco didn’t hold with stupid minions, but decided to change the subject anyway.

“We need Pansy,” Draco said, slightly quieter, and starting to pace back and forth before the roaring fireplace. Blaise’s head moved from side to side as he followed him.

“For what?”

“Just get Pansy!” Draco snapped. “And Goyle and Nott and Greengrass – Daphne – “he clarified, hastily, “and Davis and anyone else you can think of who’s being oppressed by the Ministry. From any year. We meet tomorrow in the Archive Department at 9 am sharp. And tell Pansy to start recruiting as well. She always knows a lot of people. Got it?”  
Blaise nodded. “9 am,” he repeated. “Bring people.”

Draco narrowed his eyes at his muddleheaded minion. “And don’t even think about bringing Weasley. Or Longbottom!” Because who knew what got into Zabini’s mind sometimes. The man had gone into business with those two banes of Draco’s existence after all. Very successful business. Draco growled angrily and didn’t even wait for Blaise’s acknowledgment before ending the flow call. He had contracts to draw up – in his own favor of course – and a Plan for World Domination to enact after all.

He had heard Ellie let slip that all the blackmail material he ever needed on the political figures that ran the Ministry was filed somewhere in his Department. He couldn’t believe it had never occurred to him before that his lowly position was actually one of immense power and influence. He would curse himself for his stupidity later.  
For now, he had work to do.

&……&……&……&……&……&

Hermione figured that her plan was nice and simple.

She had, after all, been up all night drawing up lists. Lists and lists and lists. More lists than she could count. A plethora of lists. Verily, a cornucopia of lists. In fact, she was well within her rights to say that it was……..

Perhaps she should stop listing the lists before someone enlisted her into a mental ward. She had heard the St. Mungo’s was looking for applicants. She laughed to herself and then stopped when it sounded like the cackling of a mad person. Really, there was nothing wrong with her; she had just been up all night.

Making lists.

Step 1 was rather simple. She had to get Penelope and Luna alone, without the suspicion of any other Unspeakables, and find out the exact details of the whispered conversation she had partially overheard the previous day.

She had a separate list for the Strickland Case.

And yet another list for her Plan to Become a Hero. That one currently only had a step one; find a cause.

There was a staff meeting at 0700 that morning for the entire Unspeakable Department currently located in London and dealing with the Strickland Case. Hermione tuned it out and made sure she sat several rows behind Luna and Penelope so she could keep them both in her sights. Later, when asked, she was able to repeat verbatim the entirety of the meeting, but during the involuntary get together itself, she only paid minor attention – there was no new information, merely a rehash of old news, and not even a single side note   
about Lines of Matrilineal Descent even though Hermione had written a thirty-page report detailing their significance to the case as well as to the reappearance of Ginny and Molly Weasley. – She would have to deal with that later.

After the meeting was over, the loud scrapping of chairs being pushed back from desks signaled the start of cautious formations of alliances. Unspeakables were shifty bastards; always seeking support for their own missions, but unwilling to divulge information or look too comfortable with one set of people in case the ever shifting balance of power moved away from them and they were left in the noose.

That’s why they were shifty. They lived in shifty circumstances.

Hermione made small talk with Septimus Bones, the Vice Chancellor, or Hand as he was called, of the Unspeakables. He was a florid, heavy-set man with the face of a slightly rotten tomato and breath that smelled like slightly decomposed cigarette butts. He had a personality to match and Hermione had never got on with him, but she was sure to smile politely and pretend that she did while in his presence.

He was conservative in his running of the Department; no money was ever spent on…….anything. And the missions that he would actually order were few and far between. And would never upset any politicians or foreign dignitaries. Hermione thought he was a wimp; the whole purpose of the Unspeakables was to do the tasks that needed to be done, but which no one else had the stones to actually do.

Then she wandered over to wave at Padma Patil, before passing Cho Chang with a faint smile. The woman was an excellent actor; so good in fact, that she had fooled Headmistress McGonagall and successfully infiltrated Hogwarts. The Unspeakables were able to keep tabs on the running of the entire school, as well as the movements of one of the most powerful wizards in the country – Animagus Minerva McGonagall – for the past five years. Cho Chang was extraordinary.

Then she greet Sarah Underwood; Head Chancellor Horace Wensleydale’s Private Secretary. Although not an Unspeakable herself, Hermione had a healthy respect for Secretary Underwood; the woman had an uncanny knack for knowing exactly what every Unspeakable in the Department was up to at every moment – a feat that was supposedly impossible, and one which even Hermione wouldn’t have credited Dumbledore or Snape of being able to do if they had been in Underwood's place.

At last Hermione was able to sidle over to Penelope Clearwater’s side, snatching Luna’s sleeve, and dragging her discreetly over to the other woman as well. She made sure her voice was loud and oblivious when she spoke. “So, ladies, I’ve heard through various sources” – and here she wiggled her eyebrows suggestively, and obviously – “that you both support the advancement of House Elves!” She sounded absolutely delighted, and slightly obsessed. “I just want you both to know, that I reopened the Society for the Promotion of Elvish Welfare last month, and we are looking for members! Guess what, ladies?! It’s hat knitting time!”

Hermione could all but hear the sniggers from those around her, and feel Luna’s and Penelope’s horror. She dug her hand into her pocket. “I have flyers in here somewhere that we can pass out! Just give me a minute.” And gently she rubbed her old DA coin that she always carried with her. She watched Luna give an almost unnoticeable twitch as she felt her corresponding coin grow warm in her own pocket – or wherever she had hidden it. It had been one of the things that Luna and Hermione had put in place when they both joined the Unspeakables several years back. Both had been wary of getting into situations where they needed backup, or they didn’t trust their backup. The coin was an insurance policy that they would be able to know when each other was in trouble, and would track it to their location.

Hermione had been quite proud of developing that little advancement. 

Now she watched Luna subtly shift her head in Penelope’s direction. Her voice was world-weary when she answered her colleague. “That sounds lovely, Hermione, and I’m sure we’d be quite happy to consider it, wouldn’t we, Penelope?” She prodded the other woman, not subtly this time at all, so that everyone in the room could see it. “Perhaps over lunch, today? You can give us all the flyers you want,” Luna promised, with just the right amount of condescension in her voice to sound perfectly believable as an actual SPEW meeting, that Luna and Penelope were merely humoring Hermione about. “At that new restaurant, The Pomegranate?”

Hermione nodded. She had no intention of going to the Pomegranate, and neither had Luna. But Hermione would pick a place and Luna would track her, and bring Penelope with her. And then Hermione would start to get some answers. 

She ginned in triumph on the inside, as she scurried out of the room with a nervous grin on her face on the outside. Hermione Granger was very good at playing games. And she played to win.

&……&……&……&……&……&

“Alright men, now listen up!” 

Draco, dressed in robes that were elegant, fashionable and much finer than he usually wore to the office, paced before his assembled troops in the – admittedly, much too small – clear area before his desk. It was raining outside his enchanted window, mirroring the weather outside, but nothing could dampen Draco’s mood.  
Blaise had done his job well. Gathered before him, and dispersed amidst the towers of parchment and paperwork that made up Draco’s Not-As-Superfluous-As-Previously-  
Thought Department, were the results of Blaise’s hunting expedition.

Gregory Goyle – still the same hulking brute he had been back in Hogwarts – was standing at semi-attention directly next to Draco’s desk, behind his former lord and master. He was wearing robes of alarming shabbiness, and his dark hair was shot with grey. He looked run down and defeated, and Draco made a mental note to get the man some new robes as soon as he had any funds to spare. Draco also spared a thought for the empty space on the other side of his desk. Vincent Crabbe had been gone for two decades and yet Draco still felt his lose; felt his own inability and impotence to save the boy who had been his friend, and then, when it was all too late, had decided to take a crazy pill and release Fiendfyre. That idiot. Draco pushed Crabbe from his mind; there was nothing he could do about it anymore, and probably not even Ellie could bring someone back from the dead who had incinerated themselves. He made another mental note to get one more Muscle. Goyle was looking lonely and unthreatening without his other half.

Draco was too cunning to write down his lists on parchment. Some spy or traitorous minion or Harry Potter would come waltzing in and discover his plans. This way they would have to find out the hard way; when it was too late for them to do anything about it.

Pansy Parkinson, dressed in robes of migraine-inducing hot pink stood directly before him with her arms crossed and an expectant look upon her face. The woman was still as vicious and as utterly without scruple as she had been as a child. She would make a good second-in-command even if Draco deplored her lack of imagination. The Dark Lord had enjoyed it, and even Draco was forced to admit that neither Lucius Malfoy nor Bellatrix Black – in their later years at least – had much imagination. Even the torture was by the book.  
Theodore Nott, dressed severally in black like all good Potions aficionados should be, lurked towards the back, his dark eyes expectant but not entirely sold on whatever Draco was   
up too. Draco would just have to convince him with impassioned speeches. He had several prepared.

Millicent Bulstrode – whom Draco had quite forgotten about these past few years – was standing to the left of Pansy. Her robes were not as bad as Goyle’s, but she looked quite poor, and her face and arms were covered in burns. Draco vaguely remembered Pansy telling him that she had finally gotten a job at the Ministry’s Dangerous Beasts Department   
about three years ago. Clearly they were making her do the most dangerous work because Bulstrode was more than capable of subduing any amount of normal trouble. 

Draco brightened as he realized he’d discovered the answer to his staffing problem already. And it was gender-diverse as well. He gave himself a mental pat. “Bulstrode,” he said, magnanimously. “You can be my new muscle.” He waved her towards the other end of the desk, opposite Goyle. “It comes with two free uniforms – dark green of course – generous health benefits, and one day off each month. Plus a quite extensive salary one we put our plan into motion.” He darted up to her and glared fiercely into her face. “Do you accept?!” he yelled, in tone promising dire punishment if she refused. 

Millicent shrugged. “As long as it doesn’t get in the way of my other job,” she said, and lumbered over to join Goyle standing behind Draco.

“Well, don’t just stand there!” Draco snapped. “Coffee, one of you!” 

Neither moved. Pansy’s eyebrow rose upwards.

Draco knew this was a delicate moment. If he told Millicent to get him coffee it could cause dissension within the ranks. Already. “Goyle!” he said. “Coffee! You know how I like it. Millicent! Look threatening. I could be assassinated at any moment.”

“Yeah, by me,” Blaise said cheerily, barging through the Department door without even knocking and followed by even more recruits. Draco generously forgave him the former due to the later. 

Tracy Davis – looking somewhat respectable in grey robes – came first. “She’s the Secretary to Ludo Bagman in the Department of Magical Sports,” Pansy hissed at him. Draco nodded.

Then she was followed by…………..Draco’s ex-wife, Astoria Greengrass.

Draco threw up a little. On the inside. He opened his mouth to start shouting when the next entrant caused his mouth to drop open and words to fail him. It was Justin Finch-Fletchely.

Blaise had invited a Hufflepuff?!

He was followed immediately by a mass mob of people that Draco only gradually identified as Dean Thomas, Parvati Patil, Lavender Brown and……Malcolm Creevey!

And then last, but not least, in walked Ronald Weasley – one of the three banes of Draco’s ENTIRE EXISTENCE! And the red-headed git had the audacity to waltz right up to Pansy – who was his girlfriend, although Draco had been pretending that was a shameless and hurtful lie for the previous few years – took her hand and fixed Draco with an expectant expression.

The office door slammed, but other than that there was no noise. Draco was vaguely convinced he had died and gone to hell. “You don’t look so good, mate,” the Weasel opined.   
He sounded honestly concerned.

And seriously, that was the last straw.

“What!” he yelped. Cleared his throat. Tried again. “WHAT IN THE NAME OF MERLIN, MORGANA, KING ARTHUR’S TITS AND THE DARK LORD’S LEFT TESTICLE ARE YOU ALL DOING HERE?!” 

There was a distant bang and Goyle came charging back towards him with all the grace of an elephant, shoved a steaming hot cup of the blackest coffee at him, and all but forced the stuff down Draco’s throat. “Sweet, caffeinated, liquidy goodness,” Draco crooned, but he wasn’t going to be deterred even by the wonderful coffee. “ANOTHER!” he demanded, throwing the cup back at his minion. Then he darted over to the Weasel and forcefully prodded it in the chest. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE, WEASEL?!” he demanded. “I want answers and I WANT THEM NOW!”

Weasley held up his hands in some type of primitive placating gesture. “Pansy said you were having a meeting, and that I should come with her.” He sounded honestly bewildered. “What’s the big deal, Malfoy!”

Draco rounded on his soon to be unemployed Second in Command. “YOU!” he shouted. He was completely betrayed by all and sundry. “How could you do this to me?!” he demanded of her now. “You know I hate Weasleys! I break out into rashes from Weasleys!”

Pansy gave him an unimpressed look. “Keep your hair on,” she told him. “Ron’s my boyfriend. If I’m invited to a secret meeting, then he’s invited as well.”

Draco was at a loss for how to deal with this utterly illogical argument. “You have all the subtly of a rhinoceros,” he informed her shortly, before turning his baleful gaze upon the architect of this disaster, who immediately held up his hands and backed away.

“You didn’t say they had to be Slytherins, Draco!” Blaise Zabini protested, putting Lavender and Parvati between him and the irate Malfoy.

“Yes, I did,” Draco hissed. “I specifically said………….” His brained finally caught up with his mouth. “They would have to be inducted as honorary members into Slytherin House!”

“Hey!” Ronald Weasley said. “There’s no way I’m going to become a sneaky Slytherin,” he protested.

Draco swung back to him and smiled widely. “Okay then, never mind that clause! Let’s get down to the real business of why we’re here.”

Because it had occurred to Draco Malfoy that if he protested the inclusion of all these Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs that he would hose more than half his minions; his recruits. And that would increase the probability that he would lose. Draco Malfoy was not a good loser. In his mind losing was something that other people did. And besides, the fact that he could now have Ronald Weasley – Harry Potter’s left-hand man – as his own, personal minion was much too good of an opportunity to pass up.

“Coffee!” Draco shouted again. “Where’s that coffee, Goyle?!”

“What are we all doing here, Malfoy?” Brown piped up now. She had more grey in her hair than even Goyle, and there was an utterly hopeless look in her eyes that had translated into peevishness sometime over the intervening years since Draco had last taken a good look at her. “You look terrible,” he informed her.  
Parvati Patil, proving to Draco that some things never change, leaped immediately to her friend’s defense. “I wouldn’t be talking, Malfoy. You’re not looking too good yourself. And   
at least Lavender still has all her hair!”

Malcolm Creevey sniggered and took a picture. Even Tracy Davis let loose a small grin.

The Slytherins held their collective breaths. They all knew how touchy Draco was about his hair. Goyle took that opportunity to shove another cup of coffee into his boss’s hands in the hopes of averting Armageddon. But Draco, surprising them all, merely lifted an eyebrow. “There’s nothing wrong with my hair, you’re all suffering some kind of mass delusion, which has been undoubtedly caused by our current level of stress and the fact that none of us – Pansy, Blaise and Weasley not-withstanding – have had any level of success in our lives.”

There was a pause while the group gathered before Draco took a good look around them at one another. Draco could see the surprise on many of their faces as they registered, for undoubtedly the first time, the fact that as a collective whole, they were not doing too well.

Justin Finch-Fletchely reached a solution first. “Well, if Parkinson, Zabini and Weasley would just share their wealth –“

“That is most assuredly not the problem, nor the solution,” Draco snapped. Yes he wanted easy money, and he could absolutely make Pansy and Blaise share some with him, but he wanted his own money more. Plus, he wanted the entire Ministry groveling at his feet.

“So what is the problem?” the Gryffindor Patil asked.

“I’m betting it’s a goddam conspiracy,” Lavender Brown muttered.

“A Conspiracy?!” said Malcolm Creevey and Weasley together. Creevey excited and Weasley suspicious and long-suffering. Draco wouldn’t be surprised if Potter complained that everything not going his way was a conspiracy. 

The Slytherins remained silent. They had had long experience of Draco and his moods, and they knew that he would get to the point when he was good and ready, and not a moment before.

“No, not a conspiracy,” Draco once again took ahold of the conversation. “Laziness!” he declared, as though that were the worst kind of conspiracy of all. “Complacency!” he boomed. “People – and we most of all – have accepted the status quo! We have inserted ourselves into the system without any complaints, feeling that we were now adults and therefore had to take our lot in life and bear up under it like men!” Pause. “And women!” Draco added hurriedly at Pansy’s baleful gaze. She was a rubbish Second in Command. Of course he meant women as well!

“And women!” he added, glaring at Pansy, just to make curtained she’d heard it. “In fact, you women bear even more!” He decided, warming up to his theme. “You slave away for less money doing the same exact work!” He’d heard some middle-aged women from the Experimental Charms Department complaining about that one day in the Ministry Canteen.  
This caused some confusion as all the women gathered before him look at all the men. “They don’t do anything remotely related to what we do,” Bulstrode declared form behind Draco.

He hastily switched tracks. “Exactly!” He hoped the sweat wasn’t showing, and hastily took several more gulps of coffee. Sweet deliciousness. Now he felt ready to proceed again. “It’s a universal plight of people from our generation! We put up with it all! The long hours, the horrid pay and the lack of advancement!” He strode over towards Patil. “Parvati,” he boomed, placing a hand on her in a companion-like way. “What’s your job?”

“I’m a hairdresser,” Parvati mumbled, somewhat embarrassed.

“A worthy profession,” Draco declared. “And how long have you been one?”

“Sixteen years.”

“And you work in a shop, yes?”

“Yes, in Diagon Alley.”

“And have you ever been promoted, or received a single pay raise in all your years there?”

Parvati’s eyes widened. “No,” she said, shaking her head.

“Exactly!” Draco declared. “Brown!” he boomed next, moving over to her friend. “You work as a Social Aid, correct?”

“Yes.” Lavender Brown’s answers were short and she glared at Draco with suspicion as though expecting an attack from him. Well, she was his minion now, and he would show her that she was now under his personal protection. Draco Malfoy treated his minions well.

“And you have promoted many worthy causes to place orphaned half-blood, half-breed and muggle-born children into Wizarding families?”

Brown nodded again.

“And you have been stonewalled at every turn.” This wasn’t phrased as a question, but Lavender nodded anyway and narrowed her eyes as though readying for combat.

“Blatant corruption and magical profiling! We must do all we can to change things immediately!” And then he watched with glee as Lavender’s eyes widened in surprise, followed by a small, sudden flare of hope she quickly suppressed.

Weasley took that moment to voice his misgivings. “Yes, yes!” he shouted. “We all know that there is corruption in the Ministry. My Dad’s been going on about it his entire life, but what I want to know is why you, Malfoy? What’s in all this for you?”

Draco looked at him like he was a moron. “The same exact thing as for most of the people here. Yourself excluded,” he added, pointedly, placing himself firmly on one side, and Weasley and his affluence and easy lifestyle on the other. Thing of beauty really, and he’d been counting on Weasley being the one to broach this question. It was the third major reason he’d let the git stay. “Look around you,” he ordered, waving at his tiny, cramped, airless office, filled with paperwork that no one cared about. “I have been down here for two decades, yet I have never received a raise, or even an acknowledgement for anyone. Every transfer I’ve put in has been denied. My family’s entire fortune was taken away due to the sins of my father and an underage fool. Me,” he clarified. “The Courts decided that Astoria –“, here he glared at his ex-wife, who had remained entirely silent during the proceedings but had watched him like a hawk with a strange glint in her eyes. “- would be granted sole custody of my son when we divorced, even though I am a capable father and I just wanted my child. Because I am a Malfoy. I cannot help my name, but I have been ostracized and degraded my entire adult life because of it. Just as Goyle has, and Bulstrode, Tracy and Nott and even Pansy and Blaise. And you, non-Slytherins, you have been kept back and ignored because the world wants to forget that any war took place, and our generation is a living, breathing reminder of it. Yes, the war happened, but they don’t want to admit that the world changed because of it. They want to live in the past, and molder in it! And we have done nothing to change this!”

“We are weak because we are divided, and because we are leaderless! I propose that we band together. We take this world by storm! We tell them that we cannot be silenced, that we will no longer put up with Ministry corruption and stupidity and waste. We will change things for the better, and that they will no longer oppress us and keep us down!”  
There was a massive cheer from the group around Draco. Even the Weasel applauded. And as Draco shook his fist in the air, and then waved his hand for silence so he could begin handing out assignments, he had the most wonderful, glorious feeling – one he hadn’t had since the early days of Hogwarts when he was King of the Mountain – that everything was going to be different from now on. Everything was going to be better.

“Now, the first thing we have to do is decide upon a name! I’ve decided that we’ll go with The Chimera Order! And where, by Dumbledore’s toenails, is Daphne Greengras?”

&……&……&……&……&……&

It was still pouring down buckets of rain by the time Hermione made her way to The Leaky Cauldron and activated her DA coin so that Luna and Penelope could find her. She had put on her disguise before entering the building and it was a fat, middle-aged man with a truly disgusting black beard that she waved at Hannah Abbott, Neville’s wife and the Proprietress, before appropriating a table in one of the darker corners of the place.

Her voice, altered along with her face, was now that of a quite bellicose individual and so when she ordered a scotch in that booming voice, her order arrived with a promptness that Hermione Granger had never received. It really made one think, that did.

Hermione glanced discreetly around the Leaky. It was midday and so the place was bustling, although not as much as it would be in the evening. Fires were roaring in the grate to compensate for the rainy weather and late autumn chill. There were candles at every table, and the huge chandelier hanging from the rafters was ablaze with light. A newbie band was screeching away in one corner, pipe smoke drifted ever upwards and the din of voices was nearly deafening.

Hermione amused herself by wondering which one of them was a pay as you go spy for Secretary Underwood or even Horace Wensleydale himself.

Unspeakables were a paranoid bunch, and Hermione had calculated one day that most of their funding went towards keeping an eye on one another. Hermione Granger might be off the radar for the moment, but she suspected that Luna and Penelope would come as themselves, and therefore would be followed.

And what better way to follow someone than to get ahead of them.

There weren’t that many eateries in Diagon Alley anyway. Underwood wouldn’t have even had to stretch the budget in order to place an informant at each of them.

Luna drifted in not five minutes later, Penelope, upright and formal, in her wake.

Hermione didn’t even bother to wave, because Luna Lovegood was one hell of an Unspeakable, and one her talents was the utterly unique ability to look through glamours, disguises and invisibility cloaks. She spotted the disguised Hermione immediately, lifted a hand in hello, and wandered in her friend’s direction.

After Madam Abbott-Longbottom, to differentiate her from Madam August Longbottom, who was still alive and terrorizing the populace, came over with their drink orders, Hermione waved a hand and cast a Muffliato. Once again she thanked the abilities of the teenaged Severus Snape for creating that spell, and marveled at his genius. She suppressed the annoyance she always felt over the fact that she was in her thirties and had yet to create anything new since her teenage years, and focused on the issue at hand.

“Good-day Luna. Penelope.” She nodded at the two women.

“What’s this all about?” Penelope asked, too wise to say Hermione’s name even under a Muffliato. People could read lips after all.

Unspeakables were suspicious bastards, remember?

Hermione was not one to dither around the issue, especially when just asking would get her the right answer. “I happened to overheard part of a conversation between the two of you, yesterday, and nosy old me, I just wanted to know what that was all about.”

Penelope looked taken aback, while Luna looked amused. “This is not how these conversations usually go,” she murmured. 

“Our friend is nothing if not direct,” Luna smiled. She leaned forwards towards her friend. “I was just asking Penelope about my request for advancement. I should have been upgraded to the Level Five – the Classified Level – several months ago, but I have heard nothing. I’ve sent numerous inquiries and requests for reevaluation, and all for nothing so it seems.”

Hermione frowned. “I’m still at a Level Three,” she said. “I thought only the oldest Unspeakables passed to Six and Seven.

Penelope Clearwater, who had been an Unspeakable for two decades, grimaced. “I’m a Level Four, and I’ve been here for more than half my life. I’m not going to rise any higher.”

“What? Why not?”

“That’s what Penelope was explaining to me when you interrupted us,” Luna said, grimly. “According to Penelope, in her twenty years of working here, she has never seen a female Unspeakable advance higher than a Level Four.”

“That’s why Andromeda Black quit all those years ago. She tried to push for a rightful advancement, and she was all but chased out of the Department!” Penelope Clearwater, always so calm, sounded downright furious. “And they definitely don’t like you,” she pointed towards black-bearded Hermione.

“Why not?”

“You’re muggle-born, female, have a borderline-genius IQ and you’re Harry’s friend. Luna’s lucky she got to Four. You’re never going to advance beyond Three,” she predicted, direly. 

Luna scowled. “Gawaine’s being promoted and then reassigned to a partner with a higher clearance next month. And the man’s an ignoramus.”

Hermione stared between both women, but neither of them appeared to be pulling her leg. She vaguely thought about slipping some Veritaserum in their drinks and asking them to repeat themselves, but had a strange feeling that she would get the same exact story from them. Really? How had all of this been going on and she hadn’t noticed any of it?! What kind of Unspeakable was she?

Sure she’d only been there for a few years, but how had she not realized that something suspicious was afoot? Was being Harry’s friend and Ron’s ex-wife and Rose and Hugo’s mother taking up so much time that she was blind to all else? She hadn’t even figured out that Draco Malfoy was up to something until Harry all but force-fed her the information?  
Hermione’s eyes narrowed. A hero deals with things, she told herself fiercely. A hero looks to the future and a hero makes things better. “Well,” she began, “we’ll just see about that –“

And then she was distracted by the sight of Eleanor Montgomery – someone even more suspicious than the entire Unspeakable Department – pausing in the door of the Leaky Cauldron, taking one look at disguised-Hermione and then turning right back around again.

“Excuse me,” she said hurriedly to Luna and Penelope. “It’s time to catch a spy,” she declared dramatically, and then hightailed it after the muggle.

&……&……&……&……&……&

Note: So what do you think? Draco’s creating an army, and Hermione’s discovered a new crusade. Only bad things can come of this, right? Next chapter sees the start of their new plans, and the return of Harry and the Strickland Case. Also, Hermione’s going to run into someone she thought long-dead. And it isn’t Fred Weasley.


	12. Hermione Runs Into An Old......Friend

Draco Malfoy and the Strickland Case  
Chapter Twelve  
Hermione runs into an old……….friend,  
Draco begins Stage One  
And Harry follows his nose.

Disclaimer: I own nothing from Harry Potter except Eleanor, as usual. Also, the more you review and tell me what you think, the faster I’ll be inspired to update, so please review. Thank you.

&……&……&……&……&……&

Hermione banged open the door, saw the muggle woman hightailing it down Diagon Alley towards Gringotts, and immediately headed off in pursuit at a flat run. She ignored the bitter cold wind whipping over the cobblestones and driving even the hardiest shoppers in doors as quickly as possible. She also ignored the fact that in her haste she had forgotten her cloak, and that her beard kept blowing across her eyes.

She figured that the disguise would cause less comment than would the sight of the illustrious Hermione Granger sprinting down Wizarding Britain’s most famous avenue. Even if the spectacle of a rotund and frankly disgusting-looking, black-bearded man hurtling down the street and continually fighting with his own beard, was causing quite a bit of laughter.

Eleanor wove around people seamlessly and possessed a naturally ability for vanishing even amongst a crowd as small as this one, but the muggle had obviously not counted on Hermione’s tenacity. Hermione knew suspicious behavior when she saw it, and besides, everything had been unsettled since the moment this woman had first appeared. Ever since that day, Draco Malfoy had been up to no good, people were dying and then coming back from the dead, and Hermione was discovering vast conspiracies all over the place. Somehow – she didn’t know how yet, but by Rowena’s eyeglasses, she was going to find out – Eleanor Montgomery was involved. And she wanted answers, dammit.

The Montgomery woman whipped around the narrow corner entrance to Knockturn Alley so quickly that Hermione almost didn’t see her.

There was a moment of hesitation as Hermione contemplated the wisdom of her choice, but then she took a deep breath, decided the hell with it, and plunged in after her nemesis. The days were so short during these winter months, that the alleyways down here were already suffused in darkness. Most of the shops had already doused their lights, streetlights were nonexistent down here – or might as well be since they were never maintained – and the only light came from the wands of individual witches and wizards.

People down here rarely used light anyway; they did not want their activities to be associated with their faces.

Hermione caught sight of Eleanor again, just barely, and decided that discretion was the better part of valor. “Stupify!” she shouted, but the burst of red light missed its intended target, who vanished around another corner. Curses and Damnation, that woman really had good reflexes. Hermione grabbed her courage by both hands and hurried to catch up.  
“Hey, old man!” a voice shouted in the darkness, before two hands grabbed her front and hauled her around to face the meanest pair of black eyes she had ever seen. Hermione didn’t waste any words. She kneed the man right in the groin and continued on her pursuit.

Flashes of spells came at her form her right – from person or persons unknown – and Hermione raised a wordless shield spell just in time. One of the spells went right through, and Hermione could taste the faint, metallic blood that only the darkest of magic carried as she dodged out of the way. She knew that Eleanor had claimed to be undercover among the people who had kidnapped Lily – and who had thought they had killed Ginny and Molly – but were these the same people? Or was Eleanor actually a double agent? Or if these were entirely knew people, who the hell were they? Perhaps they were simply hoodlums who say the fat, disgusting form Hermione was wearing and decided to have a little fun? She ducked around another corner, burst through an unused building, came out in the rear, hopped the partially-rotted fence, and then ducked down yet another corner until she was sure she’d lost her attackers.

Stop thinking, Hermione ordered herself sternly. There was time for that later. She pushed all the questions to the back of her head, where she would muse on the subconsciously but they wouldn’t interfere with what she was doing in this exact moment, and concentrated on catching her intended prey.

Eleanor Montgomery was nowhere to be found.

“God’s teeth,” Hermione swore, doing a quick Point Me spell, but there were too many human life forms around for any sort of accurate results, and Hermione had never calibrated it to differentiate muggles; it looked for life force only. Sometimes it could do individual magical signatures if she knew the person well enough, but that was once again useless in this case.

“Guess we’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way,” Hermione muttered, before closing her eyes, taking a deep breath, and listening. She doused her wand.

In the distance she heard the shouting from her pursuers, as well as an even fainter sound of Aurors, obviously dispatched when they’d been alerted to magical fighting. There was a slithering sound from a creature Hermione didn’t really want to know about in the dark, but was probably some sort of poisonous snake, and the sound of animals getting in the bins left out behind the buildings. Then, so faint she almost didn’t hear it, there was a door slam; from a building in this area.

It was completely deserted save for Hermione in her ridiculous disguise. The only thing moving was the wind, and all around and above Hermione loomed the dark buildings of Knockturn Alley.

That had to be her.

Hermione pivoted, taking into account the direction and velocity of the breeze, made a quick right, and then went one block before making another right. She looked to her right and found herself face to face with Borgin and Burkes. Or, at least, with where Borgin and Burkes had once been located.

The place had long been out of business – it had been one of Harry’s and Shacklebolt’s first acts on the Auror force after the War had ended – and the building looked deserted. No lights were on, most of the windows were cracked, and dirt and leaves littered the entryway.

The open front door creaked in the wind.

Hermione nudged it further open with her foot before she slipped in. She dropped her disguise with a wave of her hand, and it was with her own foot that she silently crossed the old, weathered and squeaking floorboards. She went through the door in the back of the main room and looked around. Three open doorways stood before her. She couldn’t pinpoint from which direction the door slam had come from, but she could make an educated guess.

If Eleanor was really as close to Draco Malfoy as she appeared, then it stood to reason she had gone to the same place as Draco had all those years ago when he had come with his mother looking for a Vanishing Cabinet.

And Hermione knew that the Cabinet was still there.

The Aurors and the Cursebreakers had removed every dark artifact they had found in the place, but no one had been able to touch the Vanishing Cabinet. They had tried every spell anyone had been able to uncover. They had even tried to burn it down. Even Hermione had tried her hand at it. But all was to no avail. Professor McGonagall – who had been called in along with the rest of the Hogwarts Staff – had speculated that the magic used to place the Vanishing Cabinet there was far older than Borgin and Burkes was, and had been designed in a time when magic itself was controlled and understood differently.

But for all Hermione’s reading, she had not been able to uncover anything to substantiate McGonagall’s claim.

At last Harry had sealed it with blood magic tied directly to him, and they had left it there. There was nowhere for anyone to go, even if they were able to use it, for its partner in the Room of Requirement had been burned with magical fire along with Vincent Crabbe many years ago.

Yet Hermione had a niggling feeling in her gut that Draco Malfoy might have been able to repair it, or to discover another Vanishing Cabinet somewhere that could be linked to it. And if there was one thing Hermione had learned from Harry over the years – and which had saved her life countless times among the Unspeakables – it was to trust her gut.  
Therefore she chose the middle hallway, which led directly to the room where she, Harry and Ron and spied upon Draco before the start of Seventh Year. The door leading up to it was closed.

Hermione paused for a moment, listening carefully, but she didn’t hear a sound. She didn’t trust that one bit. She disillusioned herself, gripped her wand tightly, pressed herself flat against the wall of the corridor, and then silently spelled the door open with a giant gust of wind from her wand, hoping that the muggle would assume Nature had caused these events, and not Hermione.

Eleanor Montgomery though, was quick. As soon as the door moved she was moving as well, and all Hermione glimpsed was her long, black skirts whipping through the open doorway of the Vanishing Cabinet. As they started to close behind her, Hermione dove forward, wrenched them open, and threw herself after the other woman.  
It was only as she was falling through blackness, to land on a plain wood floor with a jarring thump, and having her Disillusionment Spell abruptly ripped from her, that her brain caught up with her and she wondered if that had been one of her better ideas.

The hissing male voice on the other side didn’t tell her either way, because his first words were, “Well, well, Miss Granger. Still sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong?”

&……&……&……&……&……&

Draco Malfoy reclined back in the plush chairs of Ron Weasley’s office at WZ Pharmaceuticals and steepled his fingers together as he examined his most unlikely minion.  
On the one hand, the man was an uncouth, red-headed, Gryffindor idiot and Potter’s man through and through. On the other, he was extremely rich. On the one hand, he was bound to be far more trouble than he was worth. On the other, he was known to be untrusting and critical of Draco himself, and Draco could definitely use that for his advantage.

“Let’s get straight to the point, Malfoy,” Weasley said, bellicosely. “I don’t trust you.”

Draco restrained his laughter with some difficulty and merely raised an eyebrow. “Go on,” he drawled, and when Weasley stopped mid-rant, Draco waved a hand negligently. “I meant, just get on with your spiel about how I’m an awful person and out to take over the world and yadda yadda yadda. Get it all out of your system,” he offered generously.  
Pansy, who had luckily been present at this meeting on her own insistence – even though Weasley had insisted that he at least, didn’t need a babysitter – placed a restraining hand on her boyfriend’s arm. “Place nice, Draco,” she admonished her childhood friend. Draco smirked, and relished the sound of Weasley grinding his teeth.

“Let me elaborate, Weasley,” Draco continued, scooting up to the front of his seat and directing his piercing gaze at the moron sitting before him. “You only came to that meeting for Pansy’s sake, yes I know. But, you have to admit that I made several good points, yes?”

Weasley, glowering, gave a terse nod, but made no other move to show any other agreement with Draco.

“Nothing has changed since before the War, has it Weasley?” Draco didn’t wait for Weasleys acknowledgment this time. Now was the time for speeches designed to bring his enemies onto his side. Besides, Weasley wasn’t even really an enemy these days, more of a nuisance. “There’s the same old corruption, the same old waste, and the same of disrespect!”

“Your family has always gotten respect,” Weasley said, suspiciously.

“My father blackmailed respect,” Draco corrected, unruffled, “and when he fell from power those same people were all too happy to bury him and dance on his grave.”

“Is that supposed to make me like you more, Malfoy?” Ron asked, incredulously.

“The point is the blackmail, Weasley,” Draco continued. Really, he despaired of these Weasleys’ collective intelligence. Why an extremely smart woman like Granger had ever married into them was beyond him. Potter though, that he could see. “If they could be blackmailed by my father, that meant they were dirty. They are still dirty. Wouldn’t it be nice, for a change, to have elected officials who weren’t dirty? Who couldn’t be blackmailed?”

Pansy’s eyes were narrowed as she watched Draco. “All government is inherently corrupt, Draco. You know this. It’s the first rule of politics; that power breeds corruption.”  
“Them don’t you think it’s time for a different government?” He continued immediately off of their alarmed looks. “I don’t mean overthrowing anything, or even altering the system – except to clear out some of the overlap. I’m just talking about new leadership, and new people in charge of the Departments. People like Tracy Davis, for instance.”

Now both Ron and Pansy were watching him like they didn’t know where this conversation was going. Good. Draco liked them better that way. Although, it might be nice to have minions who also understood his scarily brilliant mind, of course. All in all, he decided, it was a mixed bag.

“Tracy?” Pansy inquired.

“Explain,” Weasley demanded.

“Well,” Draco began, sitting back once again and relishing in all the attention being directed at him. Good attention for once, although he was sure he could turn all attention to good attention given enough time. “She works for Ludo Bagman, who’s the head of the Magical Sports Department, but, as we all know, the man’s hopelessly corrupt. Involved in shady business with the Goblins for decades now, and no one brings him up on any charges. No on even investigates! I’m betting we could find some kind of paper trail in the Archives Department that could at least bring him up on charges of…..something. Fraud, embezzlement, bribery, I’m sure there’s something. Davis has been working her ass off in that Department for decades. She should have been promoted long ago. Now we can make sure that she is.”

Weasley was still suspicious. And rightly show. Draco approved of suspicion. “So you want to change the Ministry from the inside, Malfoy? Out of the goodness of your heart?” The sarcasm was so thick, Draco could have spread it on his toast and used it for butter. He gave the red-haired twit a scathing look.

“Of course not, Weasley, don’t be any stupider than life made you. I get a friend in a position of power, plus payback at all the officials who have given me hell over the years. Davis gets her just reward. You can help make the world better,” he offered, sarcastically. “Besides, how many times has WZ Pharmaceuticals placed patents that have gone ignored, or who were stolen by rival companies and you just know the Ministry leaked the information somehow?” He demanded. “How many times have you pushed for better laws regarding Wizard Healthcare, and they have gone ignored in favor of the Ministry approved system, even though the one offered by WZ Pharmaceuticals is much more beneficial?”

Weaslesy now looked surprised.

“Pansy is my friend,” Draco said, speaking as slowly as though talking to a child. “Your problems are her problems, and thus they become my problems.” He affected a world weary expression.

“Oh, get over it,” Pansy told him, smiling. “At least I know you were listening.”

“I’m always listening,” Draco corrected her, before focusing his attention back on Ronald Weasley. “Look, Weasley,” I’m not doing this because I’m a Gryffindor and thus a heroically stupid, self-sacrificing martyr. I’m doing this because it will benefit me. And it will be fun. But it will also benefit you. And Pansy. And everyone else in the Chimera Order – “

“Are we really calling it that?” Pansy interrupted. Draco ignored her.

“- and it will make like better for everyone. You used to like to stir things up in Hogwarts, Weasley. Don’t you want to do that again? Don’t you want to get out of Harry’s shadow for once – I mean, I know you’ve done that a bit with WZ Pharmaceuticals, but here you’re a businessman. Don’t you want to do something heroic without the name Harry Potter?”

And whatever else he was, Draco knew that sometimes he really was a master manipulator, even if all he ever did was speak the truth. He might not have Lucius’ finesse, but he also wasn’t a smarmy bastard like his dad. He was sarcastic and impatient and rude; but that didn’t mean he didn’t know what made people tick. And what made Ron Weasley tick, was that he wanted to be special. He had spent his entire life overshadowed by his family, by Harry Potter – the Chosen One – and Hermione Granger – the Smartest Witch in Their Year – and the one time he had broken away from that, Draco had heard from Pansy that bad things had happened.

So the youngest Weasley had buried his resentment, and followed Potter into the Auror Corps. And when he realized that that wasn’t the right fit for him, he branched out on his own, and founded a company with Blaise Zabini and Neville Longbottom. Now, successful, he was still not famous in his own right. Sure, people respected his business skills and his enormous wealth, but Weasley wanted his name in the history books.

And Draco had given him the perfect way to do it.

“When I’m Minister for Magic, Weasley,” he promised him generously, “I’ll see about making you a Chancellor or Head of something.” And he smirked.

&……&……&……&……&……&

Harry Potter was, he would admit it with only Great Reluctance, down in the Archives and Redundant Paperwork Division. In his defense, it was work related. To his detriment, he hadn’t been able to face Malfoy and had had to wait until the man was called away for some other business before he had snuck in. Harry had no idea who would want the Head of the Archives and Redundant Paperwork Division badly enough to call him out early in the morning on a Tuesday, and was mildly suspicious about this, but he had a different set of priorities today.

Harry had a new Hunch To Follow. Whatever else he may, or may not have been, Harry had the instincts of a Born Investigator. He knew, he just knew, that Griselda Marchbanks, last of her line, and cut down by those who had also murdered Constantine Strickland, had left something behind that would be useful to him. Constantine Strickland had been an historian; he hoarded his information. He collected all his books and put them in one place – his home – so that when he needed a reference or to check a source, all the information was right there. He held onto his research, in its entirety, for a similar reason. Harry had heard from Neville – when he was still working at Hogwarts – and from Hermione – whose passion in life was research, like Harry’s was catching Dark Wizards – that the world of advanced Academia was as cutthroat as the world of politics. Constantine Strickland would not have let his theories out of his sight.

And so they had died with him.

But Griselda Marchbanks had been a political appointee. She was used to operating by a different set of rules. People involved in politics learned how to hide their dirty secrets, or they wouldn’t be secrets for long. If Griselda Marchbanks had a secret, she would have placed it far away from her as insurance and protection both. And Harry was betting that somewhere in this mess of paperwork and incompetent filing, he would find something related to her – a cottage, an obscure bank vault – that would lead him to a connection with Constantine Strickland.

And then he would be Back In The Game.

&……&……&……&……&……&

Hermione Granger held her breath and refused to look up. She knew this showed a distinct lack of courage on her part, but it also showed a good deal of common sense. If he was as good a Legilimens as Harry had told her, then there was no way she wanted him to see what was in her mind at the moment. Her Occlumency skills, while formidable, were likely not a match for him. Yet.

A light flared, bathing the room in a warm glow. Hermione saw Eleanor’s feet off to one side – the woman wore sensible black boots –, and several pieces of furniture. She slowly stood up, but still did not raise her eyes.

There was a bark of harsh laughter. “You’ll have to look at me sometime, Granger.” Maybe it was the amusement in his words that did it, for Hermione looked up then.   
Into the dark eyes of the long-dead Severus Snape; Triple Agent, Potions Master and former Headmaster of Hogwarts. 

Her first thought, before she had fully processed the fact that he was standing here before her, was the realization of, so this is why his portrait in McGonagall’s office never woke up. He wasn’t dead!

Then is actually struck her that he wasn’t dead.

Her eyes widened. It was involuntary. She had tried to prepare herself from the first sound of his voice, but nothing could truly prepare her for the sight of black, shoulder-length hair, swirling around a sallow face, relieved only by the piercing dark eyes and mocking lips. His arms were followed over the same billowing black robes he had worn while she was still at Hogwarts.

And he was not a day older than the last time she had seen him, bleeding from a torn throat bestowed upon him by Voldemort. 

Hermione’s eyes flew towards Eleanor, who was watching the other woman with faint concern in her – admittedly lovely – large, dark eyes. “Are you alright?” Eleanor asked Hermione.

Snape stared at her suspiciously. “If you faint, Granger,” he warned, “I am most assuredly not catching you. You can hit the floor.” He smirked, eyes raking her form as he took in all the changes two decades had wrought to her form. He didn’t look at all as if the change was a good one, in fact he looked superciliously spiteful. That arse.

Hermione narrowed her eyes, her feeling of being overwhelmed entirely subsumed in the more familiar one of annoyance. “I am certainly not going to faint,” she sneered, in a way that would have made Malfoy proud if he could have seen her.

“Good,” Snape said shortly, before turning to Eleanor. “Good job. She reacted exactly the way you said she would.” Hermione had never heard Snape praise anyone before, but as her brain hurriedly processed everything that had happened, part of her wasn’t surprised by the terse nature of Snape’s approbation, as though any sort of approval for other people had to be physically hauled out of him via a lot of pain.

Eleanor didn’t look as though it bothered her, and instead gave Hermione a warm smile as if Hermione was in on a secret with her. “She’s curious this one,” Eleanor said, talking about Hermione as if she knew her. And as if she was a science project. “And stubborn. And she didn’t trust me one little bit.” The smile widened until the woman’s canines were exposed. “Which is entirely reasonable, after all.”

Hermione glared, but before she could verbalize anything, Severus Snape turned back to her. His lips thinned in a cold smile. With a mocking undertone, he declared, “I promise you, Miss Granger, that reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

His declaration absurdly reminded Hermione of the dramatics of the newly resurrected, seventeen-year-old Fred Weasley. The Elder.

Hermione looked between a resurrected Severus Snape and muggle spy/time-traveler/all-around pain the arse Eleanor Montgomery and decided that she had had enough of dancing to everyone else’s tune. She’d really had enough. “So I see,” she said blandly, watching with some satisfaction as Snape seemed perplexed by her blasé attitude. She turned to Eleanor. “My, you have been busy. First Fred, and now Snape. Professor Snape, I mean, of course.” She gave the man in question a wide, insincere smile and saw his eyes narrow. “What were you doing on the day of the final battle? Running around and making everyone believe people had died when they really hadn’t?” she inquired, nastily. Eleanor’s smile remained in place. If anything, she looked even more amused.

“Oh, I had nothing to do with Severus,” she promised.

“Well, Severus should have stayed dead!” Hermione snapped. “This is getting ridiculous. Dead people are popping up like flies around here! How the hell are you going to explain this one?! You’re going to give Professor McGonagall a heart attack!” 

The smile dropped off Eleanor’s face. 

“Do you know what you’re putting us all through?” she demanded. “You’re playing around with people’s lives as though they were pieces you move on a chessboard, and all the while you have this smug grin on your face like you’re so much smarter than everyone else!” She took a menacing stepped towards Eleanor, who merely raised her chin, although she looked as if Hermione had slapped her. “Well let me tell you something, Montgomery. Go back to whatever hole you crawled out of, and leave us alone. We do not dance to your tune! We make our own decisions here, and we don’t bloody well need you help! So leave us alone!”

“That’s enough, Miss Granger,” Snape snapped.

Hermione whirled on him too. “And as for you, Severus,” she began, his name rolling off her tongue with absolute ease. He folded his arms and surveyed her with dislike. “It’s been two decades for us, if you recall. I don’t live in fear and awe of you. I am glad that you’re back, but there were easier ways to contact me. By owl let’s say, and –“

But Snape had clearly had enough. With a muttered oath he stepped right up to Hermione and grabbed her face in his hands. “This needed to be in person, you stupid girl,” he informed her, before diving into her mind. With Hermione’s last clear thoughts, she realized that Snape had played her; that he had let her get angry because it had lowered her Occlumency guards enough for him to enter her mind virtually unopposed. She cursed her stupidity for overestimating herself and underestimating him, just as she had underestimated Eleanor before, and swore that it would not happen a third time.

Snape reached in with surprising gentleness. Everything was a swirl of colors and sounds to Hermione for several moments, but then she felt him brush something softly, which hung near her memory of the Final Battle, and suddenly she was assaulted with images and feeling she didn’t remember. She was back in the Shrieking Shack, a dying Severus Snape bleeding out at her feet, a time turner in her hand. As Harry and Ron disappeared from view, leaving Snape to his fate, Hermione ran after them. As soon as all three were gone from view, Hermione reappeared, having been disillusioned along the wall after she’d flipped the time turner. She grabbed something from out of her robes, approached her Professor with shaky movements, bent down, and shoved it in his throat.

The older Hermione still recognized a Bezoar stone with ease.

A moment later Eleanor Montgomery appeared by the side of her memory self. After a tense second, both women got to work, Eleanor sewing with steady hands and Hermione slowly closing the wounds just enough that Snape would not bleed to death. As his color steadily improved, he opened his eyes and looked at his two rescuers silently, before pulling out a vial of clear liquid. Hermione could hear him arguing with Eleanor and her younger self, pleading for death – or at least the semblance of death – so that he would finally be free to live his own life. Otherwise they could cease their work and let him died without the sound of their inane prattle in his ears.

Hermione watched her younger self finally acquiesce, and give her Potions Professor the Draught of Living Death before the memory faded from view.

She found herself panting as though she had run several miles, and facing a Severus Snape that looked the exact same age, but noticeably healthier. Distractedly she wondered if the lines on her face, and the slight grey in her hair were enough to make her totally unattractive, before she hurriedly shoved that thought from her mind with disgust. She also hoped Snape hadn’t caught even a stray glimpse of that thought.

It wasn’t even as if he was an attractive man, and she was certainly not attracted to him. It was just………that she wanted him to think well of her, even after all these years. He had been the one professor who had never approved of her, and Hermione, overachiever that she was, had thus desired his approbation even more.

The man in question was currently raising an eyebrow at her and frowning again.

“You helped save him,” Eleanor put him, from out of Hermione’s eye line. “Remember? And we rescued him together, thank God.”

“And you wanted to stay dead,” Hermione reiterated, speaking to Snape alone and ignoring Eleanor altogether.

But Snape wasn’t watching her with a perplexed expression because of anything she was doing, rather he was looking at her like she was a problem he had to solve, and one which he wasn’t expecting to have to solve at that. “Miss Granger,” he said, ignoring her question like she was ignoring Eleanor, “desist your inane prattle for a moment.” And then he reached out and grabbed her chin again.

“I really wish you would stop doing that,” Hermione informed him, but not as strongly as she meant to. It had been awhile since a man had touched her so intimately, and she was uncomfortably aware, for the first time, of the magnetism that rolled off of Severus Snape – one which made his lack of attractive features an entirely moot point.

“If wishes were horses, Miss Granger……..” Snape murmured, diving into her mind again, but this time leaving her aware of what was going on around her. Eleanor came and stood at his side, peering intently at Hermione as well.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

Hermione didn’t roll her eyes, but she very much wanted to. “Obviously the Professor here has discovered something in my mind that is wrong. My guess is that he messed up when he was sectioning off that memory of me saving him, and he sectioned something else off as well. Something he wasn’t supposed to.” No one had ever said that Hermione Granger was slow on the uptake.

All the confirmation she needed was Snape’s wince. She never remembered the man showing remorse for anything, whatsoever, but she was certain that she saw a faint trace of guilt in his eyes as he stared at her.

“I’m not going to like this, am I?” She asked, resigned.

“You don’t have any gaps in your memories or your knowledge, do you Hermione?” Eleanor asked, slowly.

Hermione thought about this carefully. “Not in my memories, no. I would have noticed something, especially after all these years.” She paused for a moment. “But………..” She had noticed something directly after the Final Battle. About how she thought. But she had attributed it, at the time, to fatigue from overuse and from the stress of a year on the run and of seven years battling a Dark Wizard. After several years she had figured that that was how her brain now operated, and had gotten used to it. No one except for her, and sometimes Harry, had even noticed anything.

But constant frustration with herself, with the faint thought that she never allowed herself to think too hard about, that she was somehow broken, or less than before, was another reason she had dropped out of her high-paying and respectable position of Head of Magical Law Enforcement and join the Unspeakables.

Of course she had had herself checked out by first Madam Pomfrey, and then at St. Mungo’s, and finally she got a CAT scan. But everything had checked out normally and Hermione had been given no cause for her suspicions. Then. Now she was finding out that, as per usual, she was one hundred percent right.

“Your brain is functioning slower than normal,” Snape broke in to her reminisces, frowning even harder. “I appear to have nicked your cerebral cortex and froze a small portion of it, so that you have less processing abilities than you used to.”

“What?” Eleanor asked. “You……..How is that even possible?”

Hermione jerked her head out of Snape’s hands and treated him to the full force of her glare. She was aware that she was fingering her wand, and Snape was aware as well as his gaze flickered downwards and then back up to her face, assessing the threat she posed. Well, let him wonder. It had been twenty years of hard work, learning the skills she had learned, and he had better not make any sudden movements or she would end him before the world even found out he was back.

“It’s possible because Legilimancy, in its purest form, can access all areas of the brain, even the parts that human beings haven’t evolved enough to use. Theoretically it can turn those areas on, although the science behind it is not there yet.” Hermione’s voice was deceptively calm.

“And most likely will never be,” Eleanor cautioned. “Those areas are unused for a reason. Some stuff should be left well-enough alone.” She turned towards Severus. “I told you not to make her forget, Severus. You were not up to it, and you messed up.”

Snape folded his arms defensively at the realization that he was facing not one irate, brilliant woman, but two, and having to answer for his choices.

“Oh no,” Hermione said dangerously, taking a step forward. “Severus Snape would never had stopped to think about anyone else’s feelings or their brains as long as he got what he wanted!” She could feel the wand in her hands shooting off sparks, and could see Snape’s anger rising, but she didn’t care. Sometimes Hermione felt that the only thing she was could for in this world, the only thing that made her special, was her intelligence. And to learn that someone had damaged that intelligence and she wasn’t even aware of it, was absolutely the last straw.

“Hermione…..” Eleanor began cautiously, but Hermione waved her to silence.

“Weren’t you the one who treated every single one of us like scum under you boot for all our years at Hogwarts?” she demanded of Snape. “Weren’t you the one who all but terrified poor Neville Longbottom – and already traumatized child – because he needed more help in class than you were giving him?! Weren’t you the one who protected Harry – another innocent child – only because of your precious Lily?!”

Snape took a threatening step towards her now. He towered above her, his black flowing robes the stuff of nightmares, and the expression on his face would have frightened a Dementor.

“Did you know that the axons in your brain span a distance of 100,000 miles?” Eleanor asked, desperately. “That’s…….about four times around the Earth!”

Neither Severus nor Hermione were to be distracted. Hermione landed her killing blow. “Didn’t you only fight the War on our side because Voldemort threatened your precious Mudblood?” she hissed. “What’s destroying part of my mind compared to all that? Why should I have expected anything less for helping you?”

“How DARE you –,” Snape began.

And then Hermione punched him right in the face.

Not expecting this move from her at all, Snape had made no effort to avoid the blow. As he stumbled backwards, Hermione spun around and head back through the Vanishing Cabinet, only vaguely aware of Eleanor’s shouts. She emerged back into the dusky darkness of the old Borgin and Burke’s back in Knockturn Alley to find herself completely surrounded by hooded figures with drawn wands, who had clearly followed her from earlier and were merely waiting for her return.

Hermione raised her wand, someone yelled, “Is that Hermione Granger?!,” and bolts of light shot towards her.

Before Hermione could even raise her wand, let alone a shield – but before the spells had reached her – Eleanor tackled her from behind, bearing her down to the ground and taking the full force of the magical blow. She screamed, rolled off of Hermione, and lay still.

Hermione was on her feet in an instant. A water whip sliced off the arm of the first attacked, and then an ice spike drove through the chest of the second.

And then Snape was there, clearly having followed them both. His wand in one hand, and a long, gleaming knife in the other, he threw the blade and then shot a ball of fire out of his wand. He placed his back to Hermione’s, raised his shield to join hers, and together they surveyed the remainder of their foes.

Eleanor groaned from her prone position on the floor. “Serves you right,” Snape told her with absolutely no remorse, but he extended his shield to include her, as the woman slowly crawled to his side and then staggered to her feet. She drew a gun and pointed it unwaveringly at her nearest target, although Hermione could see that her back was covered in burn marks, and she could find no reason why the other woman was not dead.

The six remaining figures – seeing the odds clearly stacked against them – grabbed their four fallen comrades and Apparated away.

Hermione left Snape to check on Eleanor. Immediately she moved over to the spot of their Disapparition and began casting spells. “Coordinate Grid 75 by 2871 by 360 by 4th Squared,” she said after a moment.

Eleanor, wincing under Snape’s hand as he applied some sort of salve and was waving his wand over her in a circular pattern, raised her head. “Wales?” she asked, incredulous.

“Unexpected,” Hermione said. Then grinned. “I like it.” She went over to Eleanor and rested a hand on the other woman’s shoulder. “Thank you,” she said, sincerely.

The other woman shrugged. “Figure you deserved it, what with finding out you’re walking around with part of your brain not working. I understand what that feels like, but I promise you, Hermione, I will help you get it back.”

Snape snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped, though his hands were gentle as he finished applying the salve. “Like you know the first thing about Legilimancy or Potions, which is what something like this will require.”

“I know more than you think,” Eleanor returned, hotly.

“And if you think I’m letting you anywhere near me and my mind after this, you are living on another planet, mister,” Hermione said.

Snape rolled his eyes. “Why, by Merlin’s beard, am I always surrounded by incompetent morons?” he demanded of the universe at large. He didn’t wait for an answer and wandlessly cleaned his hands. “We have to move, now. Our unknown assailants will undoubtedly be back, and with larger numbers. Granger,” he snapped, and such was the authority in his voice that she almost unconsciously snapped to attention. “Montgomery here said you’re an Unspeakable. Why don’t you do your job and find out who our attackers were, and leave the delicate and difficult work of giving you a brain again to me.” He hauled Eleanor up after him and prepared to Disapparate with her.

“You’re an arrogant bastard,” Hermione told him pleasantly. She had taken all the samples from the crime scene that she needed, and thus saw no impediment to her Disapparating away first, and this mildly annoying him.

She couldn’t help feeling that he deserved it after all.

Even if he did just come back from the dead.

&……&……&……&……&……&

There was a mild susurration at the Slytherin table that morning when Scorpius Greengrass received a letter from his estranged father, Draco Malfoy, Heir to the Malfoy Line and – as was generally agreed upon – all around arse-hat. 

“Maybe you should burn it,” opined Scorpius’ second-in-command, Lily Potter, in suspicious tones. Scorpius nodded, and glanced at the red-haired girl to make sure she was really there. Although she had returned to school several days ago, Scorpius was still a bit worried about her. She had vanished right before his eyes after all.

Gaston Goyle, third year like Scorpius and annoyed that a first year had taken over his position with Scorpius, immediately disagreed. “I think you should read what he has to say.”

Scorpius gave Goyle a look of mild disgust. “And why would I do that?”

“Because I heard that your father was up to no good,” Rose Weasley said, smugly, plopping down at the Slytherin table across from Greengrass and slamming her latest book onto the table. Scorpius snuck a peak at the title and saw that she had obviously finished Hammersmith’s Compendium of Advanced Aritmancy and was now reading something incredibly dull entitled The Origins of Magic. The eldest of Ron and Hermione’s two children was Scorpius’ personal bane of existence. She had beat him as the highest ranking student in their Year for the past two Levels, and Scorpius was determined that there would not be a third.

“He’s not my father,” Scorpius said, automatically. He gave Weasley the famous Malfoy glare, belying that point immediately.

“Right,” Rose said, skeptically. She exchanged a look with her cousin that Scorpius didn’t like, and then shot him a smirk that was decidedly far too Slytherin for the studious and uptight Ravenclaw. “But don’t you want to find out what he’s up to?” She asked him.

“Not really,” Scorpius said, repressively.

“Al told me that Aunt Luna told him, that her friend, and your Aunt, Daphne Greengrass told her, that he’s started some kind of group and your mother joined,” Lily said then.

Scorpius whipped his head around and stared at his second-in-command in shock and blatant disbelief. “No way.” He shook his head, not believing it for a second.

“Why would Al lie about that?” Rose demanded. “He’s not a Slytherin!”

“Hey!” Lily said.

“Sorry, Lils.”

“It’s true though,” Lily said, getting immediately back on track and introducing Scoripus, for the first time, to the ability girls had to tag-team a situation, as well as get wildly off-track and then bring it right back around to their original point. He looked between Rose and Lily with mild suspicion. 

“Why am I always surrounded by Weasleys and Potters?!” he demanded. “I just wanted to eat my breakfast, and now I’ve got you all haranguing me!”

“Because your parents didn’t have enough kids,” James Potter put in from behind Scorpius, obviously coming over to see what all the commotion was about. McGonagall was beginning to give them stern looks from the Head Table, and the other Slytherins were shooting disapproving glances at the young Greengrass boy. Really, every Malfoy generation was far too entangled with Gryffindors and Potters.

James wedged himself between Goyle and Greengrass. “Budge over, Goyle,” he said. The younger Fred Weasley – and James’ right-hand man – took a seat on Scorpius’ other side, pushing Lily down a bit. “You tell him, Jim,” he egged his friend and cousin on.

Scorpius sighed. “It’s like a Weasley/Potter convention. I swear, every third person at this School is either a Weasley or a Potter.”

“You’ll just have to have lots of kids when you get married,” Lily suggested, scowling at Fred and accidentally, on-purpose upending her jug of Pumpkin Juice all over him.

“Don’t look at me,” Rose said, absently. “My Dad told me I wasn’t allowed to marry any Purebloods, and especially not a Malfoy.” She then realized what she had said allowed and glance quickly up at Scorpius, meeting his wide eyes and freezing. They both turned faintly red and Lily sniggered.

“Ugh!” James declared, disgusted.

“I’m not a Malfoy,” Scorpius said, but fainter this time.

And Fred Weasley sent up a chant, “Rose and Score, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!,” until Lily dumped more Pumpking Juice on him. Fred screeched, attempted to tackle his younger cousin, and brought down the wrath of McGonagall upon them all.

“Detention for both of you, and Fifteen Points each off of Slytherin and Gryffindor!” she shouted. “At the breakfast table! Seriously, even though you’re family, you two can’t get along!” She waved her hand at the collective Slytherins and Gryffindors as a whole, all of whom gave her mutinous looks.

McGonagall massaged her temples. “I’m getting too old for this………children,” she amended. 

“You’re not old at all, Professor,” Fred put in, winningly.

“Fred and McGonagall, sitting in a tree,” Lily said, sotto voce, and Fred turned red and shoved her, but even McGonagall smiled.

“Don’t think that will get you out of Detention, Mr. Weasley,” she said, marching the two miscreants away.

“Well,” James began, after he’d gotten over his dismay at the thought of Rose and Scorpius together, and the fifteen points his cousin had lost for Gryffindor. “Even if you’re not a   
Malfoy, don’t you want to know what your fath – Draco,” he corrected hurriedly at Scorpius’ glare, “is up to?” He grinned in sudden excitement and ignored Rose’s sudden glare at him over her spectacles. “We could find out even before my dad! And then we could tell him and we’d all be heroes!”

“That would make Mr. Malfoy a villain,” Rose said, severely, “and Mum always said that he wasn’t, he was just an arse.”

Malfoy junior – currently going by the name Greengrass – looked vaguely gratified by this and Rose, realizing she was once again on the side of her arch nemesis, quickly changed her tune. “I still think we should find out what he’s up to, though. Read the letter, Greengrass,” she commanded.

Rose Weasley – for all that she had Lily’s hair-color and a pair of old-lady spectacles – was a fierce, terrifying force of nature. Scorpius obeyed without hesitation.

Dear Scorpius (the son who does not acknowledge me),  
Yes, your mother and I are teaming up. Well, actually, she’s my minion, and feel very free to tell her this, because it’s the truth. I am currently engaged in repairing the Malfoy name and reacquiring the Malfoy fortune – as well as solving the problem of all these mysterious disappearances before that fool, Potter, gets around to it – so anything you hear in the news………well, I hope you will be proud of me someday. And know that I will love you always.  
Your father (we look exactly the same, there’s no way you can deny it)  
Draco Abraxas Sirius Black Malfoy, Lord Malfoy and Head of the Archives and Redundant Paperwork Division.

Scorpius, Rose and James stared down at the letter in mild bemusement. “Well, that cleared up absolutely nothing,” Rose said, noticing, at the same time, that Scorpius was touched by Draco’s declarations of fatherly love, despite any and all of his protestations to the contrary.

&……&……&……&……&……&

The next morning three things happened simultaneously which had the Wizarding World talking for the foreseeable future. 

The first was that the world famous pop star, Pansy Parkinson, released a new single all about modern corruption in politics. It was dark and depressing, with the catchiest tune even Draco had ever heard. By mid-morning it was playing on every station and everyone in the Wizarding World seemed to know that it was actually about Pansy’s brother and his unfair sentencing at the hands of the Wizengamot’s Chief Warlock Grapeworth.

Pansy never even had to say the word, ‘bribes,’ but Draco knew that’s what everyone was saying.

The Wizengamot had to be above reproach and Draco knew that soon enough, a financial record would be called for, and who should happen to possess that, but the Archives and Redundant Paperwork Division.

The second event that greeted what had promised to be a very quiet news day in all other respects, was that Tracy Davis, Secretary for Ludo Bagman, Head of the Department of Magical Sports, file a lawsuit against her Boss for sexual harassment. Tracy had gone to the Aurors as soon as the Office opened at 7, and her tear-stained face had been splashed across the second page of the Daily Prophet. Her asking if he had just gotten away with it for so long, just because she was a Slytherin, was the icing on the cake.

Draco – surrounded by every Wizarding paper out there, and with his feet up on his desk – drank coffee and contemplated this happy state of affairs with all the smug satisfaction of a job well done.

“That’s a dirty play, Draco,” Tracy had said, when Draco had informed her of her part in the plan. Honestly, sometimes Draco wished that he could put out an advertisement for minions with an IQ higher than that of a rock.

“We’re Slytherins,” he told her. It was self-evident after all. He raised an eyebrow when she opened her mouth in an obvious attempt to argue with him, and sighed. “The allegations of misconduct will focus attention on Bagman just enough that when I carefully leak documents regarding his close and suspicious affairs with the goblins, the public will believe me and they will route out what he is doing and replace him without any of us having to lift a finger.”

“It’s still not right,” Tracy had muttered. “He’s a nice man.”

Draco had tried not to grab his minion and shake her. “We’re trying to take over the Ministry! Nice doesn’t come into things! Besides, even if he is nice,” Draco said, spitting the word like it was contaminated, “he’s still corrupt. He’s still using his power at the Ministry to promote the interests of Gringotts Bank. You said so yourself. The government should not be beholden to the Bank. We are doing the Wizarding World a favor.”

He patted her gently on the shoulder. “Sometimes you have to do the cruel thing in order to do the right thing.”

And Tracy had seemed to believe him.

The third event came from a scandalous expose by the one and only Rita Skeeter, who had overheard Ron Weasley telling his mother, Molly Weasley, about the rumors – which weren’t even rumors until Draco had found out about it and started rumors – of the Minister of Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt’s affair with the aging and hugely fat Celestina Warbeck. Mrs. Weasley’s fondness for the former Celestina Warbeck was well-known, and her loud response in the midst of Diagon Alley outside of Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes had been enough to bring Skeeter at a run.

The article, written in Skeeter’s typically embellished and scandalous fashion, had caused a wave of laugher on the Minister’s behalf and, Draco knew with no small amount of glee, a certain loss of respect for the aging War Veteran.

Draco knew that it was small trickles which started the flood, and he was planning to bring the whole house down. The Malfoy name would not end in ignominy and poverty under his rule. Oh no, instead, it would once again rise to the heights of Wizarding Society. Even if he had to drag it there by using every nefarious means he possessed.

He had a feeling Ellie would be proud. He vaguely wondered if his father would be.

Goyle, who was suspended from his job for the next few months on account of him blowing up yet another cauldron, bent down to read Skeeter’s article over Draco’s shoulder.  
“You think this’ll work, Boss?” he asked, after Draco’s arm had all but gone numb holding it out for his slow minion to finish.

“There’s only one way to find out,” he said in response.

It was then that Draco’s door burst open with enough force that the hinges screamed and it bounced off of the wall to almost hit his intruder in the face.

And of course it would be Potter.

He came through the doors with a newspaper in one hand and a face so full of fury that Draco briefly wondered who Draco himself had killed recently and where Potter had discovered the body before he caught himself. “Can I help you, Potter?” he drawled, before the man could get a word in edgewise. Draco wasn’t even sure how his enemy would be able to think and talk with that vein throbbing in his head like that.

“What,” he snarled, “is this?!” He slammed the newspaper down on Draco’s desk, open at Skeeter’s expose.

Power ebbed and flowed around Harry Potter like a river. His eyes were the green of the killing curse, and pinned Draco to his seat with the force of them. He was bathed in the single beam of light that glimmered through the grime on Draco’s windows, which drew gleams of red from his hair and made his pale skin glow. He was a vision of power and wrath and Draco found himself short of breath. The shadows lay over him just as surely as the sunshine shone on Potter.

“That appears to be a newspaper, Potter. I’ve already read the article. Scandalous. Just be glad it wasn’t about you? What was Shacklebolt thinking? This will cause a definite dip in his popularity when it was already at an all-time low do to this whole Strickland business. Has there been any progress on that, by the way?”

And Draco’s blatant insouciance, which meant that he knew exactly what Potter was talking about, and that he knew Potter knew that he knew what Potter was talking about, And that he didn’t care about any of it, made Potter’s eyes bulge and his face redden until he looked like he wanted to strangle Draco. But Goyle loomed menacingly and cracked his   
knuckles, and Potter was reluctantly subdued.

And after a few more entreaties, and several more threats, Potter departed in all his melodramatic glory.

And Draco smirked. Because really, that had been perfect.

&……&……&……&……&……&

“We don’t have time for this!” Harry had pleaded with his childhood arch nemesis, hoping against hope that the other man had learned a sense of morality in the intervening years since they stood on opposite sides of a war from one another. 

But as usual Harry’s hopes had turned out to be in vain, and he’d been forced to depart Malfoy’s office knowing that the blonde-haired menace would only attempt more efforts at sabotage at the Ministry itself when they so desperately needed some sort of stability. And there was nothing Harry himself could do about it, because there was no way he could trace all these events back to Malfoy, and no way he could legally punish the man even if he did find evidence.

All he could do was solve the Strickland Case as fast as possible. And maybe plan an illegal raid to deprive Malfoy of all his previous documents.

“Vane!” he yelled as soon as he reached the Auror Department on the Fifth Floor.

The black-haired woman looked up from the map she and Teddy were pouring over. The decibel of the Aruros in the department was at an all-time high. Sunlight poured in through sparkling, magically reinforced windows, whose sills were covered in beautiful and exotic plants. Coffee was liberally distributed by younger Aurors, from the canteen to their superiors. 

Everyone was at such a high level of productivity due to the fact that Harry’s excursions into Griselda Marchbank’s forgotten files and documents – illegally appropriated from Malfoy’s office, but this was a murder investigation and Harry had decided to pull rank and had already filed an injunction with the Wizengamot – had born fruit.

There had been numerous documents regarding property and money transfers, statements from Gringotts, purchases from Madam Malkins, bills from St. Mungo’s. Harry had gone through them all. He had compared every transfer and movement of money with that of the year before. He had called in Higglesworth and Smith and set them to creating a timeline of Griselda Marchbanks’ entire life. When Dean Thomas had come in early, he had been enlisted to create a personality profile of the woman – during which had been discovered the fact that she’d been a Slytherin which, to Harry’s mind, was very suspicious. 

Finally Harry himself had struck gold.

There, mixed in with all the other useless information, was a single sheet of parchment upon which was drawn a legal document, at the bottom of which was the old lady’s signature. 

Griselda Marchbanks, in her youth, alongside the illustrious Dumbledore, had joined an organization that had been called the Order of Valtyr.

Harry had called Hermione, but she hadn’t been in her office. Instead, he’d flooed Luna, who had agreed to send him everything she was allowed to from the Unspeakables library regarding this Order of Valtyr. And then Harry had started digging.

He had wondered – to himself in a loud voice – why he, the Head Auror, had to do all the work for the entire Department, and this was what had caused the flurry of activity to take place. No one wanted to explain to the Minister for Magic why Harry Potter had solve the case singlehandedly.

It was Romilda who had discovered the existence of something called the Valtyr Academy. “It was a magical institution that existed since the Stone Age, from what I’ve been able to uncover,” she’d told Harry, her eyes glowing. “That’s practically since magic itself was used!” She’d flipped through more pages. “I can’t believe I’ve never found this before, but it was in among Aunt Bellatrix’s old books, and I’ve never seen anything like it at the Hogwarts library! Or any other library for that matter. It’s very old.”

Harry could see that. The pages were yellowed and practically falling out. “The Valtyr Academy?” he prompted his subordinate.

“It waned at around the same time that Hogwarts was founded,” Teddy had said already pouring over a map. “Which is interesting in and of itself. We’re trying to pinpoint its location now.”

“We’re almost there,” Romilda told him now, her head not moving from her scanning of the map, her fingertips skating over its top slowly as she examined it.

Harry raised his voice. “Everyone listen up!”

There was instant silence.

“I need twelve volunteers to join me! Anyone except Higglesworth and Smith, who will be manning the Department while we are gone, to gear up. We have no idea what to expect, but this place bears investigation. We might find merely an old ruin, or we might find the hiding place of this person or persons unknown who are committing these murders. So come prepared accordingly! This is the only information in Griselda Marchbank’s affairs that doesn’t add up, and my gut’s telling me it’s important.”

Twenty hands were raised. “Thomas, Arroway, Hughes, Smyth, Pepperidge, Chin, Nagasaki, Jones, Lupin, Albrecht, Williams, and Vane.”

“Wales!” Romilda yelled. “Two miles south of Cardiff!”

“Let’s go,” Harry said.

****

Endnote: I always thought that being a Department Head was a terrible waste of Hermione’s talents. Even being in politics or the government itself. Hermione has a genius-level IQ and I think JK Rowling dumbed her down at the end, despite all her assertions to the contrary. So this is my way of explaining that and ret-conning Hermione’s actions previously to her future actions in my story. Do you like that the young generation is back? What do you think of Snape? There will be more of him next chapter! As well as the return of Narcissa and Andromeda. I do so love the Black sisters.


	13. A Dark and Ominous Castle

Draco Malfoy and the Strickland Case  
Chapter Thirteen: A Dark and Ominous Castle  
And Hermione Has A Plan

Disclaimer: As usual, I don’t own any of Harry Potter. This chapter will feature Harry and some good old-fashioned police – I mean Auror – work, as well as seeing the beginnings of Hermione planning to cause a bit of chaos with the established order of things. Please review! Tell me what you like, or what you don’t like, or which characters you want to see more of!

&……&……&……&……&……&

Harry and the Aurors Apparated to a field half a kilometre away from the coordinates on Romilda’s map. The sun was just rising in this part of the country – about a half hour earlier than it would be in London – and the bright, golden rays of the weak, early winter sun, sparkled off the frost covered grass. In all directions were the slender trunks of leafless trees and the dark, green nettles and fir of the evergreens.

Harry took a deep breath of cold, crisp air and felt his spirits rise, if only slightly. Winter was his Favorite Time of year. And on top of that they finally had a substantial clue that they could follow. This ancient Order of Valtyr’s stronghold – deeded to the Marchbanks family for the past five hundred years – was the only anomaly in Griselda Marchbanks paperwork. Everything else had checked out, or was perfectly harmless, but since no records could be discovered on an Order that supposedly predated the Founders and Hogwarts itself, Harry’s gut was telling him that this could be the key to breaking open the entire conspiracy behind the Strickland Case.

At any rate it gave him something to do that felt productive and normal when everything about the Wizarding World felt like it had suddenly gone to pieces.

And Harry was convinced he was the only one to notice any of this.

Ever since Harry had hid behind that bush and saw Draco Malfoy meeting with Eleanor Montgomery, nothing had made sense anymore. 

They had talked about a Mysterious Acquaintance. Then Ginny had divorced him. And then Lily had vanished right from the Great Hall at Hogwarts, and then Ginny and Molly had turned up dead while going after her. That would have been horrible and tragic and Harry hadn’t been dealing well with it at all, but………it was somehow normal. It was what happened when Dark Forces were Once Again Rising.

What had happened afterwards was Not Normal. Not in the slightest.

Ginny and Molly had returned – alive and well – with Lily in tow and announced their return via newspaper of all things. They had even had the gall to be angry at him for attempting to find out what had happened to him. ‘He had ruined their plan,’ they had told him. Andromeda Black had all but eviscerated him for kidnapping her grandson, but then had told him to come by the house next week and she would explain things about all this Lines of Maternal Descent business. But she had warned him that her sister would be present as well. Since when had Andromeda and Narcissa been in contact with one another? Not since the war, that Harry knew of. He suspected Vast and Suspicious Black Plots. No good could come of the Black sisters being involved in something together.

At least Bellatrix was safely dead.

Hopefully.

Maybe he should check on that.

And then Fred Weasley had come back from the dead. Speaking of people who Should Be Dead But Apparently Weren’t.

That list kept getting longer too.

Pretty soon the blasted Dark Lord would rise from the grave a second time, soulless, and somehow still going after Harry. Which was Not Alright.

Ginny Weasley had apparently borrowed several hundred thousand galleons from her brother, Ron, and had bought the Holyhead Harpies. A Quidditch team? What was she going to do with a Quidditch team?

Hermione had discovered some kind of conspiracy among the Unspeakables, and something had happened to her yesterday that she wasn’t telling Harry about yet, but she seemed more than a little pissed off about it, and had all but dropped off the face of the earth.

And lastly – but most annoyingly – Draco Malfoy had started forming an army, was consorting with mysterious muggles, probably planned to take over the Ministry……….and had started combing his hair differently. Really, you didn’t even notice the receding hairline anymore, he’d cut it a bit, and he was looking like a much more handsome version of Lucius Malfoy; all ice-prince with his hair like starlight –

Harry blanched. Where had that thought come from? He panicked a bit, glanced furtively around to make sure that no one had noticed the direction of his musings from his face, and hurriedly pretending he was thinking about something else.

What was he here to do again? He mentally slapped himself.

Constant Vigilance! He yelled in imitation of the long-dead and everlasting legend that was Mad-Eye Moody. They would not see his like again.

Although Romilda was taking a definite stab at it. Harry felt a small glow of pride. His protégé was a complete menace. Then he scowled. She was also, undoubtedly, a traitor, consorting with Malfoy and Andromeda Black. If Harry didn’t know any better he would suspect her of being Andromeda’s child………but that was blatantly ridiculous. For one thing there was the age difference between her and Nymphadora. But still. Something was Definitely Afoot with all this.

All the other Aurors had arrived and fallen into formation around Harry. He tightened his grip around his wand. “Disillusionment Charms,” Harry ordered calmly. “Vane, cloaking and detection spells. Smyth, check for dark magic of any sort. And Lupin……….bring out the Sneakascope!”

There was a murmur of acquiescence before everyone vanished, blending in with the environment around them, through magic.  
“Wands at the ready,” Harry said, pitching his voice so that it carried effortlessly to his troops, but was not loud enough to go beyond that. There was only a slight wind, and the sun felt warm against his face. “Everybody, easy pace, stay in formation. Three degrees, north-north-east.”

“North-north-east,” was the murmured response as the Aurors stepped as one towards the Welsh tree line.

They walked for maybe five hundred metres through quiet forest, the only sound the faint crackle of dead leaves as they trod upon them. Eventually they came to a path and Harry whispered for them to shadow the path, but for no one to even think about putting a toe upon the thing. Another five minutes later and Smyth reported that he felt a dramatic increase in dark magic, but Romilda couldn’t detect any spells that would alert anyone of their presence, nor could Teddy find anything suspicious with the Sneakascope.  
Ten minutes after that the trees thinned and the Aurors found themselves on the banks of a sluggish, river surrounded by tall, brown grasses. On the other side of the river rose step cliffs of dark, grey stone and perched on top of it was a tall, turreted black castle; a jagged crenellation in an otherwise serene scene of Nature’s perfection.

Dark and forbidding, the castle looked to be a Dark Lord’s dream and Harry, for a moment, wondered how Voldemort had never found out about this place. His next thought was, what if he did? And then he had to remind himself that the Dark Lord was long dead. He rapidly checked for life signs though, just to make sure.

There wasn’t the slightest magical trace that this building had been inhabited any time in the last one thousand years.

He dropped his disillusionment charm and felt his men and women do the same. Romilda gave a long, low whistle. “Bugger me,” she swore. “I bet you anything the Dark Lord would have loved to get his hands on this piece of architectural……..ugliness.”

Harry nodded absently. “Smyth? How’s the Dark Magic reading now?”

Smyth’s voice was nervous and bemused when he answered. “The reading’s off the charts, sir. I have no idea what’s going on, but I’ve never seen readings this high. I didn’t even know that they were possible.”

Harry ran some preliminary tests taught to him by Hermione to test the validity of Smyth’s findings. His tests concurred what Smyth had said. Yet the sun was shining, there were no Dark Creatures that any of the Aurors could detect, the Sneakascope was quiescent and Nature went on undisturbed. “We’ll have to get Hermione and the Unspeakables down here as soon as we’ve made sure the place is secure,” Harry said. “Let’s move forward. Cautiously. Everyone branch off. Two to a team and double-check everything before you take another step forward. I don’t want any mistakes. Lupin and Vane, on me.”

The Aurors hoovered themselves over the brown, winter river and approached the staircase, cut into the side of the cliff itself that would lead them up to the Black Castle.  
Harry felt a sense of excitement he had not felt since the adventures he, Ron and Hermione had gone through at Hogwarts. Here, at last, was a Worthy Hero’s Quest. Harry cast a variety of Dark Detection spells during the Aurors’ ascent up the winding stone staircase. The wind picked up the higher they climbed, and Harry could hear Romilda’s quiet cursing from directly behind him, but other than that nothing disturbed them until they reached the summit.

Before them rose the walls, hundreds of feet tall, that ended with a crenellated walkway around which guards had undoubtedly walked over a thousand years ago. Higher still, the towers ascended to the heavens themselves, dark black and ominous as they loomed. Harry shivered and tried to look like an ancient fortress didn’t have the power to scare him. He was Head Auror, for goodness sake. Mad-Eye Moody would have laughed to scorn any Auror who feared stone and shadow.

Nevertheless Harry lowered his voice until it was barely a murmur. “Vane,” he said, and she was by his side in an instant.

“Yes, Boss.”

“Run another scan of the building, using any spells you can think of. Perhaps that Transubsistorial…….thingy?” Harry suggest. It was mildly dark but Harry suspected that Romilda, Gryffindor though she was, was a Black enough to not mind a bit of darkness. “And don’t think, for one moment, that we are not still going to have words about certain……family matters,” he stressed. Romilda raised an eyebrow, gave him a singularly unimpressed look, and turned away, raising her wand.

“Corpus Occularo Claro,” she intoned, clearly. And then, “Transubsterial,” in an even clearer tone, shooting Harry a smug look while she did so.

Teddy sniggered, until Harry shot him a stern look. He sighed. Really, it was times like these that made him really wish he only ever went on adventures with Hermione. She, at least, always knew at the spells and didn’t make him feel like an idiot over it, because he was so used to her knowing absolutely everything.

Harry frowned, and mildly wondered what that said about him. He made a resolve to start studying…….something. Tonight.

“Anything?” he asked.

Romilda shook her head, although she was frowning. Her short, bobbed, black hair rustled in the wind. “Nothing that I can detect, but………”

Smyth had moved towards the walls and placed her palms against them. She had a calm, soothing presence – most unusual for an Auror – and had the unique ability to calm almost anyone down in the Department. Harry always made sure to include her during Staff Meetings. “There’s something……….strange about this castle. It’s like it’s trying to speak to me……like its magic is not entirely like……magic.” She sighed. “I don’t know how to explain it.”

“It’s like you speak German and you’re listening to a Dutch person. Or you’re speaking Modern English and someone’s talking to you in Middle English. It’s almost the same language, and you feel like you should recognize the words, but everything’s changed enough so that you’re not sure what you’re hearing anymore.”

Harry frowned. “Magic that’s not magic,” he summarized. Pause. “We need the Unspeakables, but we won’t worry about it now. The important thing is that there aren’t any magical booby traps waiting for us.” Her frowned even more, a faint image of Malfoy calling him a moron, and Snape raising a supercilious eyebrow at him, causing him to pause and give his previous summation further contemplation. At last he said, “But if the magic you think is here is not registering as magic, then how can we tell what is a booby trap, and what isn’t?” He decided, “there’s going to be a change of plan.”

Harry rubbed his chin. “Chin! Pepperidge!” Harry barked. They jumped to attention. Harry swung his sternest gaze upon them. These two were undoubtedly good at their job, and had an unparalleled ability to sense the slightest tremors in magical force fields, which was why they were often loaned out to the Cursebreakers. Bill had told him once that they were a menace on par with the Twins, but like Fred and George, they had a certain genius about them. Well…..like Fred and George were, because Fred was dead, God rest his soul……..

Dammit it. Harry had forgotten he was alive again. It had only been three days, sure, but still. It was all getting very, very confusing. He made a mental note to hunt down that Montgomery woman just as soon as he and Romilda had that little chat, and he had solved the Strickland Case.

He sighed. “Chin! Pepperidge!” he shouted again, forgetting he had called him already. They were standing directly in front of him awaiting orders and Harry almost jumped when he realized this. He cleared his throat. “Stand next to Smyth and had her show you what she’s doing. I want you to hone in on that strange magical signature she’s feeling until you can recognize it anywhere. Then, when we enter this place, Chin’s in front and Pepperidge takes the rear. Either of you feels that magical signature anywhere along our path, we stop and reassess.”

“Got it, Boss!”

“On it, Boss!” 

They saluted, dramatically, and joined Smyth by the wall.

Romilda moved up to Harry’s side. Her dark eyes were narrowed in contemplation. “You thinking what I’m thinking, Boss?”

Harry nodded. “We’re going in by the wall.” He raised his wand, used a spell he had learned years ago from the Half-Blood Prince’s book that tested the structural integrity of a wall, and then, when he was certain – reasonably certain – that nothing bad would happen if he did so, blew a hole in the nearest wall, a hundred feet from where Smyth, Chin and Pepperidge were arguing together in low voices. 

“Rocks shot out in all directions and were instantly frozen and brought down slowly to the ground by Vane, Lupin and Nagasaki. Smyth, Chin and Pepperidge finished their conversation, assured Harry of their ability to detect the strange magical signature, and then Harry led the way into the gloomy atmosphere of the Black Castle.

Or rather, he would have if the castle had let him. Instead, Harry walked right into an invisible barrier that instead of feeling like a wall and Harry bouncing right off of it, had to consistency of honey or tar or spiders webs, and Harry got stuck in it and couldn’t get out.

Jones had a minor nervous breakdown at this point and ran around shouting that the Chosen One was doomed. Romilda stunned him. Arroway attempted, in vain, to slice Harry free. But when one of the spells came a little too close for comfort and almost chopped off an ear, Harry told her to stop.

Dean Thomas, silent and contemplative in any and all situations, stepped up and ordered the others to be quiet. Thomas had joined the Aurors the same time that Harry, Ron and Neville had, but he had been the only one to stay in along with Harry. Naturally good with people, and with an Artist’s Sensibilities, he was the one the Department dispatched when next of kin had to be notified. And his keen observational skills meant that he was the one most often requested on loan by the Unspeakables.

He had never married, and Harry had never even heard about him going on dates with anyone, so while most people assumed that he was gay and just too ashamed to admit it, Harry just figured that Dean either wasn’t interested in anything, or the object of his affections didn’t or couldn’t return them.

For a year or two after Harry and Ginny had gotten married, he had even suspected Dean of harboring feelings for Harry’s own wife. But his fellow year mate had never made a move, or even said anything, and those suspicions had died away over time.

After all it was just Not Done to fancy your mate’s wife.

Now Dean stood next to Harry with a contemplative look on his face, like he was a Long-Lost Sage, and frowned at the boundary, even as it tried to cover Harry’s nose and mouth in an attempt to Smother Him.

It was at times like these that Harry wondered why everything in life was always Out To Get Him.

“I’ve been doing some reading lately,” said Thomas, during which Harry felt a pressing urge to silently Avada Kedavra the man on the spot.

“Really?” drawled Romilda, “that’s fascinating. You’re reading schedule is certainly useful at this moment, Thomas. Thank you for sharing.”

Dean waited patiently for her sarcasm to run its course. “If I may continue, Vane,” he said, at last. “I was reading about blood magic, and I learned that even Hogwarts had a ward system based upon blood magic during its earliest days. Perhaps what we need here is blood as well.” He pulled a knife off his belt and drew it quickly across his palm, splitting the flesh and causing a quick spurt of bright red liquid, which he held up to the barrier next to Harry’s face.

The only effect this had was to cause Dean’s hand to get stuck to the barrier, and for it to try and slowly drag him closer.

“Bugger,” was Dean’s succinct response.

Harry’s ears were almost covered by this point, but with his free left hand he waved frantically at Romilda. “What?” she asked, and Harry pointed at her. Pointedly.

He heard, with his last bit of hearing before the entire world went, Pop, was Dean getting excited. “Harry’s right! Maybe what we need is your blood, Romilda!” And then it all went silent.

“Why mine?” she asked, suspiciously.

“Well, you’re Pureblood, right?” Dean began hesitantly. At her dark look he quickly backtracked. “Or….at least that’s the rumor going around the Office. Recently.” Pause. “It’s probably not even true.”

Romilda threw up her hands. “Oh, for the love of……..crap,” she snarled, drew her own knife and cut her palm, and then shoved it straight into the barrier.

The invisible boundary wavered for a moment, like a mirage, or a single wave that, when it reached the shore, found it had become a giant tsunami. 

And then it vanished and both Harry and Dean were free. Harry gasped for breath and heard Romilda threaten All And Sundry. “Anyone who so much as breathes a word of this will find me waiting for them when they arrive home one night.” Her glare was so fierce that everyone nodded, although Harry noticed that Teddy was not surprised by anything that had happened.

He vaguely wondered what would have happened if Teddy had been the one to shed his blood, but then put it out of his mind. That was a Hermione question. He got back his breath and stood up again. “You alright, Thomas?” he asked. Dean nodded, looking none the worse for wear.

“Alright everyone, let’s move forward. Chin, you’re up front.”

Harry walked through the dissipated barrier – this time without mishap – and felt a strange……..there were no words for what he felt. It was like…….he had stepped out of one world and into another one. It was as if the barrier to the castle had separated more than just space, but time as well.

He felt different on the other side of it. More……uncertain, like the usual laws did not apply. But he felt more powerful as well. He felt Well And Truly Magnificent. 

He glanced at his Aurors out of the corner of his eyes and noticed that many of them had perplexed expressions on their faces, as though they could not quite make out what was happening any more than Harry could. Romilda’s frown was, for a split second, that of something she could almost remember, before Harry caught a Suspicious Realization enter her dark eyes, and then they went blank when she noticed him looking.

He raised an eyebrow at her and glared, telling her that Secrets Would Not Be Tolerated.

Thank you very much.

She grinned at him, as though daring him to make good on his threat.

“Sir,” Chin said, from the front. “I’m getting something.”

Harry resisted the urge to say something sarcastic about such a Banal And Inexact Statement. Seriously, how well was the Academy training these recruits, anyway? “Yes, Auror Chin. Be more specific.”

Chin frowned. “It’s a presence. Maybe more than one. But I can’t tell if it’s human or other creature. The magical lines around this place are seriously distorting anything I can pick up.”

Harry thought about this for a moment. “Which way?” he asked at last.

Chin thought for a moment. “This way,” he decided. “Follow me.”

It took them ten minutes to reach a staircase which led to the lower levels. The castle was dark and deserted, cobwebs covering the walls and ancient sconces. Doorways led to other passageways, but Harry couldn’t tell if any of the passageways led to anything that had been inhabited anytime in the past century.

His Dark Magic Senses were tingling.

This was all going to End Very Badly.

Romilda poked him sharply in the back. “You moving anytime soon, Boss?” Harry realized that he was standing still at the top of the staircase, with Chin looking up at him. 

“Everyone keep alert and at the ready.” He paused. “More than you already are.” Further pause. “Never mind.” He tightened his grip on his wand, and wondered how on earth Dumbledore had made leading people into battle look so easy. Harry was able to lead his friends just fine, but having anyone else looking to him for guidance made him tongue-tied and awkward.

Hermione said that he had an inferiority complex, as well as anger issues and a certain stunted growth in his maturity level, due to his parental abuse at the hands of the Dursleys. Also, it had caused Harry, according to Hermione at least, to have an inability in forming intimate relationships. As proof of this she sighted Harry’s distance from Ginny all throughout their marriage, leading up to their divorce, as well as the fact that Harry had made no close friendships with anyone save Ron and Hermione herself, in all his years since leaving the Dursleys. She said that he was very lucky he didn’t have anything else wrong with him – such as the anti-social behavior Voldemort had displayed. And even Snape when he was younger. 

Harry thought that Hermione should stop reading so many books. He’d even told her so many times. Reading that many books couldn’t be good for the brain, or a Balanced and Well-Adjusted Life. However he knew deep down that A) She Was Right, even if he would never tell her so because she would be unbearably smug, and B) that telling Hermione to stop reading was like telling Draco Malfoy not to hatch any more nefarious plots. A Useless Endeavor. Or like telling certain Dark Lords to stay dead once you killed them. A Losing Battle.

Harry went down the stairs.

At the bottom of the stairs was a dark, dank corridor.

At the end of the corridor were several cells.

In three of these cells Harry and the Aurors found people; slowly dying, terrible emaciated, and most likely horribly tortured, people.

Pepperidge made a nose in his throat and waved his wand at the first door to unlock it, before attempting to charge in and rescue the young woman he could see through its bars. The door remained locked, and emitted a large explosion which took Pepperidge’s arm with it.

Pepperidge screamed, and clutched at his severed limb. Blood was everywhere and he had clearly lost his wand, or the ability to focus. Romilda grabbed him to still his movements and Harry immediately cauterized the wound. Pepperidge fainted from the pain and Romilda caught him. Harry looked around hurriedly. “Smyth!” he snapped, looking for the young Auror, before noticing that she was lying, dead, on the ground at his feet, a piece of splintered debris having hit her directly in the eye and piercing her brain.

The rest of the Aurors had been able to raise their shields in time. Harry felt a pang at the loss of Smyth and ruthlessly suppressed it. They were sending the recruits out from the Academy half-trained and obviously ill-prepared for quick responses in the field. Harry had hoped that this quick scouting mission would be mostly uneventful, but he had obviously miscalculated. He would decide his guilt over everything later. For now he needed to move. This place was obviously too dangerous, with magic that was unpredictable and not reading as normal magic. 

The rest of his Aurors remained under their shields and watched him mutely, some with very white faces. He made up his mind. “Chin! Jones! Take Pepperidge and Smyth here to Saint Mungos. Get a time of death for Smyth, and the rest of you go with them and get yourselves checked out. Spell Damage, I think. They had the most experience with rare and dangerous magic. Tell them we are dealing with the unknown.”

Chin relieved Romilda of her burden.

“Vane and Lupin will remain behind with me.” The rest of them dropped their shields but kept a wary eye on the dank stone walls around them. Everything was quiet, very quiet, but no one was taking any chances. Especially not with one of their own dead.

“Go out the way you came in,” Harry prompted, and they scattered.

Romilda watched them leave with a critical eye. She shook her head. “Should have been a cynch op, even if we were facing unknown magic,” she said. “Aurors are supposed to be trained for this sort of thing.”

Teddy was examining the door without touching it. His face was barely an inch away from the opaque glass. “Harry!” he said, excitedly. “There’s someone in here!”

Romilda and Harry crowded around Teddy, trying to get a better look. Romilda grumbled something and waved her hand, clearing the glass with an unknown spell. Teddy gasped and Harry and Romilda stilled. Inside the cell was the limp form of a young woman, emaciated to the point of starvation. Teddy raced to the cell next door and peered furiously through the whitish glass-like boundary. “This one’s a little girl!” he cried.

Romilda had stayed where she was and watched the young woman with a strange expression on her face. Harry took another look; dark hair, now brittle and wispy, sharp, patrician features, and a certain expression on her face that Harry found very familiar. He had looked at it every day all during his school years, and now he looked at it every day in one of his Aurors. He looked suspiciously between the dying woman and a Romilda who had a look of dawning horror on her face.

She felt him looking and shook her head. “I don’t know yet, Harry. It shouldn’t even be possible!” But her words only confirmed Harry’s suspicions. He moved over towards the other cell and saw a little girl, curled in a ball, and facing away from him. Her long, red-gold hair was dull and lifeless and he couldn’t even tell if the child was breathing.

And Harry could feel rage coursing through him, pure, righteous anger at the innocents lying out of his reach due to a magic he did not understand. Hermione had once told him that magic was emotion-based, and that the earliest wizards had learned of their powers, and learned how to channel them, by working off their emotions. Harry had not been sure that he believed her that they were so intrinsically linked before now.

But as his anger grew, he felt his magic start to swirl around him; power without a target. And he growled something, afterwards he couldn’t tell what it was, but the low timber of his voice sent up vibrations in the air, and as they grew louder and louder, like ever expanding ripples in a lake, he slammed his fists as hard as he could into the magical barrier that had destroyed two of his Aurors and……….

…………the barrier shattered inwards into a million pieces and with the sound of broken glass.

Harry was over to the little girl’s side in an instant, running a series of diagnostic spells and checking her vital signs. When he was sure that she didn’t had any broken bones or ruptured organs, he carefully gathered her up in his arms.

She was barely breathing.

“Sweetheart,” Harry coaxed gently. He could hear Romilda in the other room running a similar series of tests over the young woman. “Sweetie,” he said again, as gently as he could manage. He had never been good with children, but this child needed all the gentleness he possessed. “Open your eyes for me. Can you do that?”

And with a show of unbelievable strength, the little girl’s eyelids fluttered and eventually opened. Her blue-grey eyes attempted to focus on Harry in vain. With a sigh, she closed them again.

“Good job,” Harry praised her, and to his utter surprise she issued a faint snort of derision at what he assumed was his tone. He leaned closer to her, hoping that Teddy was watching their surroundings and that nothing would creep up on them while both Harry and Romilda were distracted. “What’s your name?” he asked softly.  
With a voice that was barely a whisper, she answered, “Agnes Greene.” Pause. “The girl……next door……..she’s Roxanne Lestrange.”

Harry started and she must have felt him for she trailed off a moment, but Harry didn’t have time to ponder this particular revelation about the emaciated young woman right now. He slowly stood up, Agnes cradled in his arms.

There was a faint tremor in her body and Harry realized with shock that it was the remnants of a laugh. “And you’re Harry Potter,” Agnes said. “I’ve been rescued by…….Harry Potter……..the Chosen One.” Her words were filled with more cynical humor than a 60 year old librarian should have possessed about a book returned over a year later.

“Yes,” he agreed, “I’m Harry Potter, and I’m here to save you.” And he had to refrain from doing his Hero Walk all the way out of the dark castle and their Apparition to St. Mungo’s. From Romilda’s mildly amused glance, he was sure that he had been Somewhat Unsucessful.

&……&……&……&……&……&

Hermione had returned to her office, taken one good look at her Wall of Web still covered with information about the Strickland Case – useless strings of useless facts –, and promptly started another one.

So……..Severus Snape is alive. Hermione thought. And then, What a tit. She rummaged through some drawers until she found her colored yarn. And he was in cahoots with that muggle woman, Eleanor Montgomery, who all evidence points towards as mysterious and probably not even English. I still think American.

She waved her wand and the word American appeared on parchment next to Eleanor’s face. Which Hermione stuck a pin through just for good measure. 

She stepped back, looked at the two Walls and decided that she needed two more. She wasn’t sure where Snape and Eleanor fit into the whole mess, so they got their own. The Strickland Case had its own Wall of Web. Then she needed another one for all the murders and disappearances that didn’t look like they fit into the Strickland Case – which included the attack on her that had taken place in Knockturn Alley. She had decided to name that one the Order of Valtyr, after the reference to it that Harry had discovered in Griselda Marchbanks effects down in Draco Malfoy’s Archives. Somehow it was all connected. Strange as that may seem. Hermione added blue-green thread connecting  
Marchbanks on the Order of Valtyr with Marchbanks in the Strickland Case. Then she added black and connected Draco Malfoy with just about everything.

She made a metal note to investigate whether or not Constantine Strickland had had any ties with the Order of Valtyr.

The last Wall of Web was going to be dedicated towards the Unspeakable Department itself. On that one Hermione put up pictures of Underwood, Bones and Wensleydale, and then pictures of herself, Penelope and Luna. She needed to have a chat with Padma soon.

And then she had to do something about all of this.

“You strike where they don’t expect you to strike, so they cannot see your final aim,” Hermione whispered.

But first she had to send off a quick owl to her children. Rose had written to her requesting recommendations on the theory of magic itself, and Hermione had been shocked to discover that her own reading on the subject had only comprised some half-dozen books. She had visited the Unspeakable Library yesterday to get more ideas, but had only been able to locate a further four books. She sent those off to Rose, as well as a letter to Hugo encouraging him to be his own person and not to follow his cousin on anymore hair brained schemes, and that dragon taming was not an appropriate sport for 11-years-olds even if Hagrid said it was alright.

Then she made a mental note to herself to go through Constantine Strickland’s collection of books. They had been boxed up by the Aurors and placed in storage somewhere. Hermione knew that Strickland had been researching the history of certain bloodlines, because Draco Malfoy had been conducting a series of interviews with him. But no one else had come forward to say that Strickland had also interviewed them. That was what had started Hermione’s theories on whether or not the disappearances and murders were based on blood purity, but that had proven to be a dead end.

But maybe Strickland had been looking just at blood purities when he had been researching bloodlines. Maybe he had been researching bloodlines in general –whether they be muggle-born, half-blood or pureblood – and had been tracing families throughout the centuries. The Malfoys would have been a good family to investigate because their records went far back. So would the Blacks.

Maybe Constantine Strickland had been looking at early magic, because Hermione knew that the earliest magic had been blood magic.

It never hurt to check out.

And if she was right………well, that opened up a whole new avenue of possibilities. 

There was a ring on her telephone even though it was on 7:30 and the Unspeakables didn’t start conducting business hours officially until 8:00. Hermione picked it up, wondering all the while as she did so, why the Unspeakables used something as practical as a telephone when the rest of the Wizarding World did not. Of course, it was the old-fashioned type of phone from the late 19th century with the rotating dial face and the receiver located in a cradle at the top of the device. Hermione’s was blue and gold. “Hello?” she answered.

“Granger,” snapped the voice.

“Yes, sir,” Hermione said promptly. It was the Hand of the Unspeakables, Septimus Bones.

“I need to see you in my office, immediately.”

Hermione paused as she thought about this. On the one hand – hand, hahaha – she could admit that she was in the building already, even though it was before eight in the morning, and attend to her superior promptly. On the other hand, the man was an officious toad, and Hermione knew for a fact that the Unspeakable Department had not registered her arrival this morning because she had gone in the back way. She often did when she stayed late or arrived early.

“I’m sorry sir,” she said, making sure her voice sounded contrite and very distant, “but I am currently in Scotland, and not at the Office. I will be there by eight though, and I will be in your office barely five minutes after.”

“How are you answering this phone then, Granger?” Septimus Bones asked, suspiciously. 

“It’s routed through to my Mobile, sir,” Hermione said, promptly.

There was a rustling of some paperwork over the line. Then the Hand was back. “According to our logs you should still be here because you never checked out to go home last night.”

“Must be a problem with the logs, sir,” Hermione said cheerily. “I went home at 7 pm, sir. After I had a meeting with Luna and Penelope about House Elf rights,” she said then, deliberately. 

There was complete silence on the other end of the line, and Hermione knew she had surprised the man.

“We starting a new knitting pattern this week,” Hermione announced with glee.

Bones cleared his throat. “That sounds fascinating, Granger. Report to me when you get in.” And he rang off.

Barely a minute later Hermione’s phone rang again. Hermione knew it was Bones again. He was probably checking with magic to see if the person answering this phone was actually in the building. That was annoying. And rude. She picked up the phone and thinned her voice until she sounded like an old woman, and then she answered it. “Yeah,  
whataya want!” she snapped.

Pause. “Who is this?!” demanded the Hand.

“This is Accounting! Who is this?!” 

“I’m looking for Hermione Granger.” Septimus Bones sounded confused.

“I’ve never heard of a Hermione Granger!” Hermione snapped.

“Wait, really?”

“Are you wasting my time, young man? DO YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS TO PEOPLE WHO MAKE PRANK PHONE CALLS AND CALL WRONG NUMBERS? YOU’RE WASTING VALUABLE TAX PAYER GALLEONS!” Hermione screamed. “What’s your name, pal? You’re real name! AND DON’T LIE, WE’VE GOT A TRACE ON THIS LINE! I’ve half a mind to report you to Public Commissions and Fraud Accounts and see how much they charge you for this! By my reckoning they’ll take every second you’re on the line with me, exponentially increase that, and then take it out of your salary all the while calculating gross income and overtime accruement as well as benefits acquisition and then double that by a figure of some 15 percent! How do you like that, Mr. Funny Man, huh? How do you –“

The line went dead.

Hermione smirked.

At 8:05 Hermione knocked on Septimus Bones’ office. His secretary gave her a suspicious look and Hermione launched into a tale of mother’s woe about Hugo and dragons and disciplinary action and older cousins, which was, in fact, mostly true. By the time she had finished the secretary was nodding in commiseration and sharing her own stories of children and the escapades that got up to.

“Granger!” snapped Bones from inside the office five minutes later. He had obviously decided to punish her for her – supposed – unavailability at 7:30 by making her wait like she had made him wait. Hermione resolved that the man needed to be taken down a peg or two. The secretary gave her an empathizing smile and Hermione knew that she had made an ally.

She repressed a grin and walked through the Hand’s door. She felt great. For the first time in years it felt like cobwebs were being blown out of her brain and that she was thinking clearly. She felt free. She felt powerful. And she felt very, very angry.

Septimus Bones gave her an annoyed glance.

Hermione walked in, seated herself primly at the edge of his guest chairs without being asked, and stared at him until he finally looked up from his paperwork and addressed her. “Granger,” he said again.

“Yes, sir. That is I,” Hermione said, mock cheerily. “Well…..it was the last time I checked, anyway. But they’ve been doing all of this fascinating research into the Identity of the brain among muggle psychologists, that even your most basic beliefs about human individuality are being called into question! Is our identity based solely upon time and space – such as where and when we were born – or are their some parts of ourselves that are immutable no matter where we are placed? What makes us male and female besides inherent cultural bias and norms? It has to be something because then how to transsexuals fit in? Or are they just another product of cultural bias and norms? Or are they solely the result of genetic anomalies? Really, sir, the whole thing –“

“Granger! Put a cork in it!”

“Sir?” Hermione asked, blinking innocently. Then she affected a suspicious look upon her face. “Are you questioning your sexual identity, sir?” she asked, concern lacing her words. “Is that why you’re so touchy about it? Because it is perfectly alright to question –“

“I am NOT questioning my sexual identity!” Septimus Bones yelled, and Hermione heard his secretary drop something.

“Of course not, sir,” she said meekly, somehow managing to convey that she didn’t believe him in the slightest. Inside, Hermione smirked. The rumors would be travelling around the Department by lunch time. 

Septimus Bones gritted his teeth and looked like he was attempting not to strangle his employee. “What Level are you at now, Granger?” he inquired, in a threatening tone.

Hermione knew how to head this one off. “Level Three, sir,” she said, promptly. She knew that Bones’ secretary was listening with her ear pressed against the door. “But I was thinking that three is really too much responsibility, especially for the work I am doing.”

“What are you talking about?” Bones asked, suspicious an off-balance by Hermione’s completely different response from the one he was expecting. People being threatened with a demotion didn’t pre-empt the situation. They got quiet or they begged or they even cried. This……..was not normal.

“I mean,” Hermione said, inching closer to her second-in-command Boss. “I graduated from the Academy with the top score, so I am more than capable sir, but I’ve never been given more than three missions in a year! I am mostly relegated to paperwork!”

“What about that whole mess with Fishburne and his Hex Machine?” Bones demanded.

“I got involved on my own, sir,” Hermione said, promptly. “I thought they could use me, and they did.”

“And the Celia Grey fiasco?” Bones inquired.

“Managed to coincidentally stumble upon the whole thing,” Hermione said.

“And when the Lake at Hogwarts proved to be a drug-producing facility by the mermaids?!”

“You mean, you didn’t know I wasn’t assigned to that one, sir? Even though my expertise is with non-human magical creatures?!” Hermione sounded aghast at this oversight.

“No one knows what goes on around here!” Septimus Bones cried, alarmed at how the tables were turning.

“Well, here I’ve been inserting myself into cases over which I have no jurisdiction, because I’ve been given cases that were far below my advancement level and magical and intellectual abilities. So, the logical thing to do would be to demote me!” Hermione said, triumphantly. “Don’t let me near those cases, and let the people who originally were sent to handle it…….handle it. They have to learn some time. And I’m not getting paid enough for this.” Hermione leaned back in her seat, feeling like she had done a good job on the whole thing.

“Well –,” started Septimus Bones, at a loss for how to proceed with this conversation.

There was a bing from the Floo and a bland, female voice which announced, “Padma Patil.”

“Let her through,” Bones said, and Padma’s head appeared in the grate. 

“Sorry, sir,” she announced, “but I can’t get ahold of Unspeakable Wensleydale –.” She saw Hermione. “Oh, hello, Hermione! I just tried your office! We have a situation.”

“What kind of situation,” Hermione said, quickly, before Bones could get a word in.

Padma looked between Hermione and Bones, sensing that some sort of power play was going on, and unsure if she wanted to get involved or not. 

Padma Patil had always been a beauty, just like her sister Parvati, and time had only made her grow more distinguished without losing any of what had originally drawn people to her looks. Dark-haired with olive skin and almond-shaped, dark eyes, she was willowy and graceful, with a haughtiness and pride that came from the Ravenclaw in her, and distinguished her from her bubblier, twin sister. Hermione had been occasionally jealous of Padma’s beauty as well as her undoubted self-confidence, and had mourned the increasing amount of wrinkles on her face and the grey in her hair silently, and without anyone noticing. But Padma was a good Unspeakable, and Hermione had found her to be trustworthy in a number of situations, and now was not the time to suspect that a younger Severus Snape would also find the older Padma Patil quite attractive. She had bigger things to worry about, like how to crush Septimus Bones and his unctuous, corrupt, arsehole of a self.

“Patil!” snapped Bones.

Padma jumped. “We have a situation at Azkaban,” she reported immediately. “Not sure what it is yet, something about the Dementors. Hermione knows a lot about Dark Creatures and I am requesting that she be assigned to case, along with Luna and Penelope.” Padma was often assigned to be the Dispatcher for the Unspeakables, although Hermione suspected this had less to do with her delegation abilities, and more to do with the fact that Padma was scarily competent at rooting out patterns and thus had exposed a number of gangs, conspiracies and secret organizations during her time with the Unspeakables, and Bones, Underwood and Wensleydale were wary that she would uncover their own little machinations.

Septimus Bones was clearly hesitating here. On the one hand, he really wanted to demote Hermione and eventually kick her out of the Unspeakables altogether. The problem with hiring the best and brightest, Hermione thought, complacently, was that they quickly found out things you didn’t want them too, exactly when you didn’t want them to. On the other hand, he wanted the problem dealt with immediately and in a satisfactory manner, and without Hermione that would prove more and more unlikely.  
Even with part of my brain dormant, I’m still smarter than most of the people around here, Hermione thought with satisfaction. It probably came from her ability to think logically, something most wizards still couldn’t seem able to grasp.

If Bones didn’t get the case closed quickly – by not including Hermione let’s say – then the Minister would start asking questions and Unspeakable Department Numbers would slip.  
And then people would talk.

Padma knew it and Hermione knew it.

Even Bones knew it. Although he clearly didn’t like it. “Granger, get on it! And report back to me when you’re finished,” he ordered. Hermione hesitated and he waved a hand at her. “Get out of my office, Granger!”

Padma’s head disappeared and Hermione went out the door. She made sure to grimace sadly at the secretary as she did so. Sow your oats when you had the chance, and all.  
Padma was waiting for her at the Unspeakables Apparition point. They were the only Department to have one actually inside the Ministry building itself. It was highly warded and only Unspeakables – whose magical signatures had all been registered – were allowed to pass through. Otherwise the magic would squish them and then lock them in a magical limbo space to be dealt with by the proper authorities later.

Luna and Penelope were waiting with Padma as well.

“Everything alright?” Padma asked. And Hermione realized that Luna and Penelope had filled Padma in on everything that had taken place yesterday. 

“Yes, thank you,” Hermione said, politely. She looked between the three other women. “Well discuss all this after Azkaban,” she promised. Padma nodded, calibrated the Apparition device, and Luna, Penelope and Hermione entered it.

“So, do we know what we’ll find on the other side?!” Luna shouted over the rising wind.

Penelope shook her head, short, curly hair whipping around her face. “Not a clue!” she shouted back. “But he Director sounded frantic in his Floo!”

“Whatever we find,” Hermione declared, “we’ll deal with it!”

And the three women disappeared into the magic slipstream.

&……&……&……&……&……&

Several hours later – after the chaos and screams had died down, but before the Press had got wind of it – Head Unspeakable Wensleydale and Hand Unspeakable Septimus Bones called Luna Lovegood and Penelope Clearwater into the Head’s Office for a sit rep. To their slight disappointment, none of the three women had died in the attempt to restore  
order at Azkaban. But they consoled themselves with the thought that there were punishments to dole out nevertheless.

There had to be. They would find something to punish them for.

“Unspeakable Clearwater, perhaps you can enlighten us as to what happened when you, Unspeakable Lovegood and Probationary Unspeakable – pending a Hearing – Granger arrived at Azkaban Island.” Head Unspeakable Wensleydale had the annoying habit of always addressing everyone as though he were speaking before committee.

Penelope Clearwater had a monotone voice and blank eyes. This had come in handy when she had to question nefarious elements of Wizarding Society, but had lost her every boyfriend she had ever had. Penelope decided that this was no great loss however. Men were, on the whole, a bunch of whiny, opportunistic, backstabbing bastards anyway. Case in point, just look at the two fine specimens before her. She conveniently ignored the fact that the third suspicious bastard was a woman.

“We arrived at 0900,” Penelope began, correctly and extremely precise. “Expect the unexpected and all that. The Dementors had all gone haywire. Something to do with their magical restraints no longer being sufficient. Unspeakable Patil sent off for Professor Andromeda Black – who used to lead the Experimental Magic Division here – and her team at Ruskov University in the Urals. She transferred there from Ingolstadt, if you remember. Then Granger, Lovegood and I – fully expecting to die in the pursuit of our duty – subdued the Dementors. Which was successful.”

She ended her report.

Luna attempted to stifle a laugh. Her husband, Rolf, had once told her that Penelope Clearwater had the ability to make even the most exciting, exhilarating adventure sound like a lecture on financial reports, and Luna would have to agree.

Bones and Wensleydale looked vaguely put out. Bones cleared his throat. “That was very succinct, Unspeakable Clearwater, thank you for your summation of events. Unspeakable Lovegood, do you have anything to add?”

“Not really, sir,” Luna told him cheerfully, and watched politely as his eye twitched.

“Where is Probationay Unspeakable Granger?” Horace Wensleydale asked.

Luna and Penelope exchanged looks. Hermione had decided that she was bored with simply rounding up the Dementors, and during the capture of the last one had decided that it should have its rights read to it, and – given the fact that there were no records attesting to its guilt in any wrongdoing – should be set free. On the condition that it refrained from sucking anyone’s soul out. 

The bit of magic she had performed had been completely off the cuff and brilliant. Even Penelope was impressed. The result was that now Hermione was trailing the Dementor to see where it went.

“Unspeakable Granger is attending to personal matters and will be returning momentarily,” Penelope said, correctly and completely unhelpfully. 

“Probationary Unspeakable Granger seems to be involved in a number of actions not sanctioned by this Department,” Wensleydale droned ominously. “For instance there is the matter of her little formation of a House Elf movement during business hours.” He jabbed a fat finger at both Luna and Penelope. “And what were you two doing yesterday in the Leaky Cauldron consorting with an unsavory character – undoubtedly a delinquent – during your lunch break?”

Luna looked blank and unhelpful and let Penelope answer. Really, the other woman had a particular gift for this.

“That was the Head of the House Elf Liberation Movement,” Penelope said. “Unspeakable Granger doesn’t run it, she just asked us to join. Horace Snoogleblat does. The bearded man,” she added, when her superiors looked confused.

“And what does this organization do, exactly?” Bones asked, suspiciously.

“Frees House Elfs,” Penelope said promptly, and gave Bones a look as though she was questioning his intelligence. “And –,”

“Sir!” shouted Gawaine Goodman, Luna’s partner, barreling through the doorway. His already florid face was an unhealthy puce color from the unwanted exercise. “D’rector Ambrosius just Flooed in! They’re missin’ a Dementor over at Azkaban! Apparently Unspeakable Granger let it loose!”

There was a long silence, which Penelope felt the need to break after a moment.

“And Dementors,” she finished.

Luna groaned.

&……&……&……&……&……&

Hermione Granger had done the impossible and freed a Dementor.

At least, so she gathered from the undertone of the frantic Unspeakables who had been sent to apprehend her and drag her before Wensleydale. “It shouldn’t have been possible!” one of them declared. “That was Old Magic,” another whispered, and “Only a Dark Lord with the old magic in his blood could have called them away from their binding to the Ministry!” Another had stared at her suspiciously and voiced the opinion, “Maybe she’s a Dark Witch.” The others seemed to give this due consideration.

“I let it out under perfectly controlled circumstances,” Hermione put in, helpfully.

They silencioed her and then dragged her through the Unspeakable Department in chains. Luna, Padma and Penelope watched her worriedly from a hallway where they were in whispered conversation. Luna attempted to send her a brave smile, as though to say they would think of something, but Hermione merely grinned. She had been meaning to recruit a bit today, and this presented the perfect opportunity. She sent a yell through Legilimancy to Luna. Get me Daphne Greengrass!

She wasn’t sure if she was successful, because she had never tried to talk to anyone except for Harry, but she figured that it was worth a shot.

Luna’s eyes widened in surprise at least, so maybe her message got through.

Hermione was shoved roughly into a seat at the end of a very long table, around which was sat the most senior members of the Unspeakables. Hermione carefully looked around at the stern faces and two dozen pairs of eyes. All men, she thought. Very interesting. There was a “hmming” noise from up front by the Head, and Hermione’s eyes focused on Secretary Underwood.

The woman really was an officious toad. Short and at the tail end of middle age, she was obviously compensating for the loss of her beauty by dressing far too ostentatiously. Everything she owned was high-priced, from her earrings to the brightly-colored, far too clingy robes. Her hair was dyed a white-blonde that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a Malfoy, and her face looked like a bucket of prickled prunes.

Hermione wrinkled her nose and decided to look elsewhere. Harry had told her about the LW Conference Room – the Long Winded Conference Room as those unfortunate enough to get called to it had named it – and this room reminded her of that. It was sterile, possessing only enchanted windows and a metal and glass table. The men seated around it looked hardly less sterile.

Underwood was apparently talking to her given the redness of her face.

“Unspeakable Granger,” the woman intoned officiously. “We’re inquiring into the accusation leveled against you that you let loose a Dementor?!”

“Yes?” Hermione said, prompting politely.

Underwood looked like she was gritting her teeth. “Did you do it, or didn’t you?!” she demanded, obviously in no mood for subtlety.

Hermione had opened her mouth to give an extremely long lecture on the magical properties and abilities of Dementors in general when there was a sudden wrap on the door, followed immediately by the entry of the person on the other side.

Daphne Greengrass, dressed in a muggle suit, with a brief case in her hand and glasses on her nose, looked around at the assembled Unspeakables and moved to Hermione’s side. “Don’t say another word,” she counseled her new client. Then she leveled a glare at the others present in the room. “This feels very much like a trial, not like any sort of questioning of the matter regarding Hermione Grange and the Dementor, which took place on December 3rd at precisely 3 pm, London time. As legal counsel to the Unspeakable Department, I am demanding that this interrogation be ended immediately, and a formal complaint against my client lodged with the Legal Department by the end of the day. As of right now, my client will no longer be taking questions regarding the event, until all due proper procedures under the Law have been carried out!” She stared around her ferociously. Then she waved at Hermione to get up and follow her.

“Are there any further questions, Head Unspeakable Wensleydale?” she inquired, in a tone of voice that stated plainly that everything had been explained perfectly, and that if there were an further questions she would come after them all personally with a pitchfork.  
Wensleydale, looking slightly stunned, shook his head.

“Good,” Daphne Greengrass said, propelling Hermione before her forcefully out the door. Underwood looked absolutely furious, as did about half of the table, and Hermione made sure to smirk triumphantly in their direction before she was out the door, down the hallway, and surrounded by the concerned faces of Penelope, Luna and Padma.

She turned to thank her lawyer.

“I don’t know what you’re up to, Granger,” Daphne Greengrass said, green eyes sparkling and a grin threatening to break lose, “but that was the most fun that I’ve had in ages. So whatever it is,” she took a deep breath, “I want in.”

She looked uncertainly around the circle of former Gryffindors, Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, as though unsure of her welcome. It was a far cry from the confident vixen that she had been in her younger days, and Hermione felt a sudden, surprising pang as she realized that she missed that girl.

She and Daphne Greengrass had probably exchanged no more than a dozen words during their entire seven years – well, more like six – at Hogwarts, but that didn’t mean they both weren’t aware of the other. Hermione knew Daphne’s character – or the character she present to the world, at least – as well as Daphne knew hers. Hermione knew that her character had mellowed over the years, until recent events had brought all the old fire back.

She wondered what it would take to bring back Daphne’s old fire as well.

Well, baby steps and all that. Hermione smiled widely. “You’re welcome to join us, Daphne. The more the merrier.”

Daphne looked a tiny bit relieved, but mostly very suspicious. “What is it, exactly, that I’m joining?”

“We,” and Hermione waved her hand grandly to encompass her army, “are in the business of creating chaos.

Daphne looked completely blank at this statement. At last she asked, “Why?” 

“What do you mean, ‘why’?”

“I mean what’s the point.”

“Of creating chaos in general, or what I – and all of us really – are hoping to achieve here specifically?” Hermione demanded, annoyed at Daphne’s lack of precision.

Daphne rolled her eyes. “Both, Granger, both.” She folded her arms and studied Hermione carefully. “You’ve been a quiet, good little Ministry employee for years. Even during your younger years you made very little waves in the established order of this place. You freed the House Elves, sure, and you attempted Auror reforms including limited the use of  
Memory Charms on Muggles – quite commendable I must add – but you were not a rebel. Now here you are, freeing Dementors, and defying Wensleydale and planning to cause chaos in the Wizarding World.”

She poked Hermione in the chest. “What’s up with you,” she demanded.

“Also,” Luna piped up, “Draco’s forming an Army of Minions!”

“He’s what?!” Hermione yelled, outraged.

“That’s right,” Daphne asserted, nodding. “He is. According to my sister he’s planning to take over the Ministry and enact a large amount of reforms. We’re being kept down. Our generation, that is,” she clarified.

Hermione looked extremely miffed. “I thought of it first,” she said, sullenly. Then she straightened up. “And there’s no way we can trust Draco Malfoy to bring about good reforms in the government! That’s preposterous.”

“Why?” Daphne challenged. “Your former husband, Weasley, apparently thinks Draco has the right idea. He’s joined him. And so have Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil from your own house.”

“What?!” yelled Padma.

There was a moment of silence from Hermione. “That bastard!” she yelled, at last.

“Which one?” Daphne inquired with a smirk.

Hermione glared at her. “Both of them. Malfoy and Weasley.” She started to pace. “Well, we’re not going to let them get away with stealing my glory. We’re going to strike them  
where it hurts the most.” She stopped and face the incredulous expressions of her coworkers. They were looking at her as though she had gone round the twist.

“Where’s that?” Luna asked, clearly humoring her.

“Right in the ego. Stage One is to expose the corruption in the Unspeakable Department. Stage Two is to solve the Strickland Case before the Aurors or Malfoy’s little minion group do.”

“And what will that gain us?” Daphne asked, not denying Hermione’s plan, but clearly questioning both its wisdom and if it would bring her any gain.

Hermione brightened. “Oh, so you’ve decided to join us?” she asked, excitedly. 

Daphne shrugged. “As I said before, it looks like fun. Besides,” her green eyes took on a malicious light. “I’ve been meaning to get back at Bones for…….one or two things over the years, and this looks like the perfect opportunity to do so.” She shrugged again. “But I still need to know what you’re planning.” There was a pause. “Or do you not even know.”

Hermione affected a look of exaggerated surprise. “Of course I know the plan,” she assured the others.

Daphne’s eyes narrowed even further. “You’re making this all up as you go, aren’t you?” she accused.

“Do I look like the type of person to not plan everything out to the minutiae?” Hermione asked, pleasantly. “Surely you remember my study charts from Hogwarts?”

There was a collective shudder. Hermione in the Unspeakable Academy had been even worse. Even Daphne and Penelope, who hadn’t been there at the time, had heard the horror stories. And Luna shook with dread. And the worst part of it all was that Hermione would actually follow up on the charts she made people, to make sure that you were actually following them.

Hermione eyed the resulting dismay with complacency. That’s what she liked to see, fear at the sound of her name. 

“No,” Daphne began, slowly, “you don’t seem like the type to not have a plan.”

“In fact,” Hermione said, brightly, “I have multiple plans, all with many, many backups that can be activated due to any number of changing or transient events.” Her gin widened until she looked honestly frightening with her frizzy hair and practical shoes and the gleam in her dark eyes. “Just in case,” she said.

“So……..,” Daphne continued after a moment, where the others contemplated a world where Hermione Granger didn’t work for good and truth and justice, but for darkness and the murder of innocent kittens, and were all very glad that she had a strong moral code. “What’s the plan?”

“Well,” Hermione said, “these two plans are very simple, although I’m sure they will grow more complex as we carry them out. The first one is to identify the conspiracy behind the Unspeakables. I got a good look at all the men who seem to be involved. I need blackmail material on all of them. Luna and Padma are tasked with breaking into the Archives  
Department on the sly in order to acquire some.”

Luna and Padma nodded. “You don’t want Malfoy knowing what you’re up to?” Padma asked.

Hermione nodded. “Nor would he give it to use willingly, I think. Not when he finds out that I plan to beat him to the Strickland Case and win the hearts of the public before he can. Which,” she rubbed her hands with glee, “is your job, Penelope, to casually drop in the ears of one of his minions. I expect a declaration of war before the week is out. Which should be fun.” She stopped pacing and thought a bit. “And then, Penelope, I need you to drum up more support. There has to be more people dissatisfied with the way things are being done in this Department. You’ve been here the longest. Find me some.”

“And what will I be doing?” Daphne asked. 

Hermione clapped the other woman on the back. “You’ve been promoted to being my second in command,” she informed the Slytherin, watching with pleasure as Daphne’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Why?” the other woman asked.

Hermione could have told her that it was for a number of reasons. The first was that she had decided to be unpredictable throughout this entire operation, and the expression on Daphne’s face told her that she was successful in this case. The second was that it would promote inter-house cooperation, considering that Hermione was a Gryffindor muggle-born, and she had a Slytherin pureblood as her second in command. The third was that it would give her a way to keep the slippery Slytherin – who was their only lawyer – in her group. The fourth was that it would annoy Malfoy. And probably Harry.

But the reason she gave was simply, “Because you challenged me, Daphne, and a Leader always needs a second in command who calls on them to make the plan better.”

“So what am I doing?” 

“You and I are going to follow that Dementor. It’s very simple, really. If it is some new type of Dark Magic – powerful Dark Magic – that is behind these disappearances and murders, the Dementor will take us there. They are drawn to the darkness. We’ll find out who’s behind this before anyone knows what’s happening. It’s that easy.”

Hermione should have remembered that in movies those were always famous last words.

&…..&……&……&……&……&

“Simplicity is the key to all successful planning,” Draco said severely, starring over his fingertips at his errant minion. In this case, his ex-wife, Astoria Greengrass, and her newly acquired partner-in-crime, Lavender Brown. They nodded together, quickly. Astoria all hesitance and Lavender all smarmy. “And so is logic,” he emphasized sternly. Astoria’s nods increased in frequency until Draco thought her head would bounce off.

Draco sighed. Why was he always stuck with the stupid ones? Why could he never once acquired some intelligent minions? He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Now,” he began, trying and failing at patience, “would one of you like to explain how you thought attempting to stink-bomb the Minister himself as he entered the Mess Hall was a logical plan?”

Before they had even opened their mouths, Draco knew that he was going to have to put each and every one of his newly acquired minions through training. Because really, this was a disgrace. 

Why am I always surrounded by idiots? He wondered, resisting the urge to bang his head into the desk as Astoria and Lavender droned on.

Why?

&……&……&……&……&…….&

Endnote: So, more Harry and the Aurors in this chapter. Hermione causing chaos and starting multiple plans at once, and Draco still laying out his pieces. What did you think? Next chapter is going to be one of my absolute favorites, and our three heroes………well, just wait for it. And please review!


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